Le Vernet, France: The heads of Lufthansa and Germanwings paid their respects on Wednesday near the crash site of the plane that slammed into the French Alps, after reports a video had emerged showing the final terrifying seconds in the cabin.
Carsten Spohr and Thomas Winkelmann’s visit comes at a time of intense scrutiny on Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings and has revealed it was aware that the co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing the airliner had suffered from severe depression.
Lufthansa said 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz had told the airline in 2009 about his illness after interrupting his flight training.
Flight 4U9525 crashed in the French Alps last week at a speed of 700 kilometres an hour, killing all 150 people on board.
Germany’s Bild daily which says it had seen the footage, said the video was found on a mobile phone belonging to one of the passengers killed on the flight.
The scenes seen on the video were chaotic and very wobbly, said Bild, adding screams and shouts of “My God” could be heard, indicating the passengers knew what was happening.
Prosecutor Brice Robin, who is handling the case in France, said none of the mobile telephones collected at the crash site had been sent for analysis.
“All are for now being kept at Seynes-Les-Alpes. If people at the site have picked up mobile phones, I am not aware of it,” he said. France’s BEA investigation authority could not immediately be reached for comment.
On the video, which Bild described as being “indisputably authentic”, a banging of metal could be heard at least three times, possibly the sound of the pilot who had been locked out of the cockpit by Lubitz trying to break through the door.
Near the end there was a heavy shake and the cabin tilted sharply to one side. After further screams the video ended, said the paper.
The footage appeared to have been taken from near the back of the plane but no individuals could be identified, said Bild.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, one of the lead investigators into the crash, added that anyone with footage “must hand it over immediately to investigators”.
French magazine Paris Match also ran a story on the video and printed an account of a conversation between the two pilots, according to a “special investigator”.
When the captain left the cockpit to go to the toilet, he told Lubitz that he was in control. “I hope so”, Lubitz replied, according to the magazine.
Later the captain implored Lubitz to let him in.
Lufthansa said on Tuesday that Lubitz had told officials at the airline’s training school in 2009 that he had gone through a period of severe depression, raising questions about screening process for pilots. Prosecutors have said he suffered from “suicidal tendencies” before obtaining his pilot’s license.
Lufthansa is facing legal action from relatives of the victims and Chief Executive Carsten Spohr will be at the crash site in France on Wednesday.
Lufthansa’s Spohr and Germanwings chief Winkelmann arrived at Seyne-les-Alpes near the crash site aboard a helicopter, later making their way to the village of Le Vernet where they laid a wreath at the foot of a memorial erected for the victims.
Spohr then read out a statement to reporters, but refused to answer a torrent of questions.
There are “no words to describe how terrible this accident is,” he said, thanking rescue teams and locals for their support in the aftermath of the March 24 disaster and promising continued help for the victims’ relatives.
Meanwhile, authorities were set Wednesday to start gathering the personal belongings of victims at the remote crash site.
In Berlin on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande said authorities hoped identification of all 150 passengers would be possible within a week, though investigators have previously said it could take weeks and some may never be identified due to the extent of the devastation.
Some 450 relatives have visited the site so far, a local official said Tuesday.
Lufthansa said $300 million (Dh1.39 billion or €280 million) had been earmarked to cover the damages, while Germanwings will immediately compensate each family with 50,000 euros — a sum that will not be deducted from any final compensation deal.
The catastrophe has dealt a heavy blow to the image of Lufthansa, which announced Tuesday it would cancel celebrations next month to mark its 60th anniversary.
German prosecutors have said Lubitz was diagnosed as suicidal “several years ago”, before he became a pilot, but had appeared more stable of late.
Doctors had recently found no sign he intended to hurt himself or others, but he was receiving treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists who had signed him off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.
Police found torn-up sick notes during a search of his apartment after the crash.
The plane’s second black box, which gathered technical data on the flight, has yet to be found.
French investigators said Tuesday they would now concentrate on “the systemic weaknesses” that might have caused the disaster, including the logic of locking cockpit doors from the inside, which was introduced after the September 11, 2001 terrorist hijackings in the United States.
They also plan to look into procedures for detecting “specific psychologic profiles” in pilots.
