© Provided by AFP Investigators work at the crash site of the Germanwings plane in the French Alps, on March 26, 2015
The grief of families who lost loved ones when a suicidal co-pilot crashed a Germanwings plane into the French Alps has long turned to anger, a year after the tragedy that claimed 150 lives.
Many relatives have banded together with plans to take the airline's parent company Lufthansa to court in the United States, arguing that the depressive 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz should never have been allowed to fly a plane.
"We are still infinitely sad about the death of our daughter," said Annette Bless, whose child Elena died in the tragedy last March 24, a day before she would have turned 16.
"The days before the sad anniversary of this terrible tragedy are particularly difficult for all the victims' families," Bless, a 52-year-old language teacher, told AFP.
Elena was one of 16 students and two teachers from a high school in the western German town of Haltern am See who were among those killed.
The teenagers and staff were seated near the rear of the Airbus A320 after a week-long school exchange in Spain, headed back from Barcelona and bound for Duesseldorf airport.
But as flight 4U 9525 cruised above France, Lubitz took the fateful decision that sealed the fate of everyone aboard.
When the pilot, Captain Patrick Sondenheimer, left the cockpit for a bathroom break, Lubitz locked the door behind him and set the autopilot into a steady descend.
In the flight's last minutes, the voice recorder only picks up Lubitz's breathing as he ignores calls from air traffic controllers while the screaming pilot tries to pry open the door with a crowbar.
The pinging of an alarm signal fills the cockpit as passengers' screams can be heard from the cabin, before the aircraft ploughs into the snow-capped mountain.
Source by: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/grief-stricken-germanwings-families-plan-us-lawsuit/ar-BBqGtZl
0 comments:
Post a Comment