Search underway for second black box of Airbus A320
Search and rescue teams are still looking for the second black box of the doomed Germanwings Airbus A320 passenger aircraft as recovery operations are underway at the crash site in the French Alps.
On Friday, dozens of specialized police as well as rescue workers continued searching for the second black box of the crashed jet, which contains technical flight data, on the fourth day of recovery operations in France’s southeastern town of Seyne.
The aircraft, which was traveling between the Spanish coastal city of Barcelona and the German city of Dusseldorf, went down less than an hour before landing, between Barcelonnette and Digne in the French Alps earlier this week.
All 150 people on board the plane were killed in the tragic incident.
Meanwhile, officials are also combing the debris for body parts to gather DNA samples amid efforts to identify those that lost their lives in the disaster.
“We’re first collecting biological elements, then debris,” said a police spokesman.
On Thursday, the investigation team examined the plane’s first recovered black box that contained voice recordings in the cockpit before the crash, deciding that the incident had apparently been intentional.
In the data from the voice recorder, the pilot outside the cockpit was heard “knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer,” an investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. “And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer.”
During a a press conference in Marseille on Thursday, Brice Robin, the French public prosecutor in charge of the investigation, said the German co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, “through a deliberate act, refused to open the door of the cockpit to the commander, and activated the button that commands the loss of altitude.”
Lubtiz was suffering from depression and anxiety, according to the public prosecutor.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also said, “It’s up to the legal investigators -- especially the Germans and of course Lufthansa -- to shed light on the career and profile of this pilot,” adding, “Everything is pointing towards an act that we can’t describe: criminal, crazy, suicidal.”
The investigators have said they are still trying to determine the exact reason why the captain had left the cockpit and why Lubitz, aged 27, would commit such a deliberate act.
The tragic crash has killed people from more than a dozen countries, including 75 from Germany, at least 50 from Spain, and two sports journalists from Iran.
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