Co-pilot was ‘very happy' with Germanwings job

March 27, 2015

Montabaur, March 27: Andreas Lubitz never appeared anything but thrilled to have landed a pilot's job with Germanwings, according to those who helped him learn to fly as a teenager in this town in the forested hills of western Germany.

On Thursday, French prosecutors said Lubitz, the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525, “intentionally” crashed the jet into the side of a mountain Tuesday in the French Alps.

Germanwings Co-pilot1
Members of his hometown flight club in Montabaur, where he renewed his glider license last fall, told The Associated Press that the 27-year-old Lubitz appeared to be happy with the job he had at the airline, a low-cost carrier in the Lufthansa Group.

After starting as a co-pilot with Germanwings in September 2013, Lubitz was upbeat when he returned to the LSC Westerwald e.V glider club to update his glider pilots' license with about 20 takeoffs.

“He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well,” said long-time club member Peter Ruecker, who watched Lubitz learn to fly. “He was very happy. He gave off a good feeling.”

Club chairman Klaus Radke said he rejects the Marseille prosecutors' conclusion that Lubitz deliberately put the Germanwings flight into a descent and crashed it straight into the French Alps after the pilot had briefly left the cockpit.

“I don't see how anyone can draw such conclusions before the investigation is completed,” he told the AP.

At the house of Lubitz's parents, the curtains were drawn and four police cars were parked outside. Police blocked the media from the single-family, two-storey home in a prosperous new subdivision on the edge of Montabaur, a town 60 kilometres northwest of Frankfurt.

A team of investigators entered the home and, on Thursday evening, people could be seen emerging with blue bags, a big cardboard box and what looked like a large computer. Another person who came out was shielded from reporters with a coat by police.

Investigators also searched the apartment that Lubitz kept in Duesseldorf in an upscale three-storey building in an affluent neighbourhood.

In Montabaur, neighbour Johannes Rossmann said Lubitz appeared to be in good health and was a regular jogger. He described the pilot as calm and low-key.

“I do not believe he killed himself and claimed other people's lives,” the 22-year-old Rossmann said. “I can't believe it until it is 100 per cent confirmed.”

Lubitz learned to fly at the glider club in a sleek white ASK-21 two-seat glider, which sits in a small hangar today on the side of the facility's grass runway.

On Thursday, a large hawk circled lazily over the runway, capturing the same gentle updrafts that glider pilots use.

After obtaining his glider pilot's license as a teenager, he was accepted as a Lufthansa trainee after finishing the tough German preparatory school at the town's Mons-Tabor High School.

Germanwings Co-pilot

According to Lufthansa Chief Executive Carsten Spohr, Lubitz trained in Bremen, Germany and in Phoenix, Arizona, starting in 2008. He said there was a “several-month” gap in his training six years ago but he couldn't say what the reason was for that.

After the break, Lubitz “not only passed all medical tests but also his flight training, all flying tests and checks,” Spohr told reporters, saying the co-pilot was “100 per cent fit to fly, without any limitations.”

After completing his training, Lubitz spent an 11-month waiting period working as a flight attendant before becoming a co-pilot on the Germanwings A320 fleet. Spohr said such a waiting period is not unusual at Lufthansa.

Lubitz had logged 630 hours' flight time by the day of the crash, the airline said.

Ruecker said Lubitz had a girlfriend and gave no indication during his fall visit that anything was wrong.

“He seemed very enthusiastic” about his career, he said. “I can't remember anything where something wasn't right.”

Lubitz's family could not immediately be reached, but a Facebook page bearing Lubitz's name showed him as a smiling in a dark brown jacket posing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Ruecker confirmed that the photo was of Lubitz.

The page, which was wiped from Facebook sometime in the past two days and restored on Thursday as an “In Memory” site, said Lubitz was from Montabaur. It also lists him as having several aviation-themed interests, including the A320, the model of plane that crashed Tuesday; Lufthansa, the German aviation company; and Phoenix Goodyear Airport, in Arizona.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said German authorities had checked intelligence and police databases on the day of the crash and Lufthansa told them that regular security checks also turned up nothing untoward about the copilot.

“According to our knowledge at this point, and after comparing the information we have, there is no terrorist background for him as a person,” de Maiziere said.

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News Network
March 18,2024

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Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed a landslide victory in the just-concluded presidential polls, securing him a fifth term in power. While Putin hailed the results as an indication of "trust" and "hope" in him, critics panned the polls for its preordained nature.

As early results poured in, Putin won 87.8% of the vote, the highest-ever result in Russia's post-Soviet history, Reuters quoted Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) exit polls. The Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) put Putin on 87%. 

If he completes the term, the 71-year-old President will also script history as Russia's longest-serving leader for more than 200 years, overtaking Josef Stalin. 

While Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov finished second with just under 4%, newcomer Vladislav Davankov third, and ultra-nationalist Leonid Slutsky fourth, partial results suggested.

In his victory speech, Putin said he would prioritise resolving tasks associated with Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine and would strengthen the Russian military. 

"We have many tasks ahead. But when we are consolidated - no matter who wants to intimidate us, suppress us - nobody has ever succeeded in history, they have not succeeded now, and they will not succeed ever in the future," said Putin. He was welcomed by his supporters to the stage with "Putin Putin" chants. He also hailed the results as an indication of "trust" and "hope" in him.

Later, while interacting with reporters, Putin also warned the West that a direct conflict between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario. "It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this," Putin told reporters after winning the biggest-ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.

Meanwhile, the Western world condemned the elections, stating the polls were neither free nor fair. While Germany called it a "pseudo-election" under an authoritarian ruler reliant on censorship, repression and violence, UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron condemned "the illegal holding of elections on Ukrainian territory".

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said, "The Russian dictator is simulating another election".

Earlier during the elections, heeding an opposition call to protest, hundreds of  Russians crowded outside polling stations at noon Sunday, on the last day of the elections. The associates of Alexei Navalny, the critic of Putin who died earlier this month in an Arctic prison, had urged people who were unhappy with Putin or the war in Ukraine to go to the polls at noon on Sunday. Many turned up and lines outside a number of polling stations both inside Russia and at its embassies around the world appeared to swell at that time.

Among those heeding the call was Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's widow, who joined a long line in Berlin. She later told reporters that she cast her vote and wrote her late husband's name on the ballot.  Asked whether she had a message for Putin, Navalnaya replied: "Please stop asking for messages from me or from somebody for Mr. Putin. There could be no negotiations and nothing with Mr. Putin, because he's a killer, he's a gangster."

One woman in Moscow, who said her name was Yulia, told the AP that she was voting for the first time. "Even if my vote doesn't change anything, my conscience will be clear ... for the future that I want to see for our country," she said. Like others, she didn't give her full name because of security concerns.

Another Moscow voter, who also identified himself only by his first name, Vadim, said he hoped for change, but added that "unfortunately, it's unlikely".

More acts of rebellion were reported on Saturday too. Cases were filed against at least 15 people for pouring dye in ballot boxes, started fires or lobbing Molotov cocktails at polling stations. Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s CEC, said 29 polling stations across 20 regions in Russia were targeted, including eight arson attempts.

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News Network
March 16,2024

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Ottawa, Mar 16: An Indian-origin couple and their teenage daughter were killed in a "suspicious" fire which tore through their home last week in Canada's Ontario province, police said on Friday.

A fire engulfed a home at the Big Sky Way and Van Kirk Drive area of Brampton on March 7, a press release by the Peel Police said.

After the blaze was put out, investigators located what was believed to be human remains within the gutted house, but the number of people killed couldn't be ascertained at the time.

The charred remains were on Friday identified as those of three family members: 51-year-old Rajiv Warikoo; his wife, 47-year-old Shilpa Kotha; and their 16-year-old daughter, Mahek Warikoo.

Police said that they resided at the address before the fire.

Peel police Constable Taryn Young on Friday said the fire had been deemed suspicious, the CTV news channel reported.

"At this time, we are investigating this with our homicide bureau, and we are deeming this as suspicious as the Ontario Fire Marshal has deemed that this fire was not accidental," the report quoted Young as saying.

"There's not much left to it," Young said when asked about the possible cause of the fire.

"Looking into something like that as a fire marshal, I'm sure it's very tough when there is not much left to look at. But we are exhausting all avenues," she said.

The deceased family's neighbour, Kenneth Yousaf, said that the family had lived on the street for about 15 years, and he never noticed any problems with them.

Yousaf said he was alerted to the fire last week by a family member, who heard a big "bang." "When we came out, the house was on fire. So sad. Within a few hours, everything was down to the ground," the report quoted Yousaf as saying.

In a press release, police said they are continuing to investigate the deaths of the three family members and urged anyone with information to come forward.

"The circumstances surrounding the house fire remains the focus of an active investigation, and anyone with information or video footage (dashcam or otherwise) is urged to contact Homicide detectives," police said.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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