Germanwings Flight 9525: The Locked Cockpit and the BEA Findings

This short documentary covers Germanwings Flight 9525 from takeoff to the changes that followed, in about eight minutes.

The flight

The A320 took off from runway 07R at Barcelona at 10:01 a.m. local time, about half an hour late, bound for Düsseldorf. On board were 144 passengers and 6 crew from many countries. The crew confirmed instructions from air traffic control at 10:30. At 10:31 the aircraft left its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet and began to descend without clearance. Controllers declared it in distress when they could not reach it. A French Air Force Mirage was sent to intercept it, but before it arrived the aircraft crashed in a remote part of the Alps.

The cockpit door

The video describes the cockpit voice recording. When the captain, Patrick Sondenheimer, left the cockpit, the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, kept the door locked. The captain asked to be let back in and then tried to break the door down with cabin crew, but cockpit doors had been reinforced after the 11 September 2001 attacks. The co-pilot said nothing during the descent.

Why

The video then summarises what the investigation found about the co-pilot: a doctor had recently declared him unfit for work, which he had not told his employer, and he was taking medication he had not disclosed. It describes his fear that he was going blind, for which doctors had found no physical cause, and his fear of losing his licence. It notes that the BEA pointed to the lack of insurance for pilots who lose their income when found unfit, and to unclear German guidance on medical confidentiality. It says he had searched online for methods of suicide and for information about cockpit door security, and had practised the altitude changes on the outbound flight.

Afterwards

Lufthansa retired the flight number, and many airlines and countries introduced a rule that two crew members must be in the cockpit at all times.

Note: the video says the co-pilot 'disabled the lock'. The BEA describes a cockpit switch that, set to LOCK, keeps the door locked and disables the cabin keypad, including the emergency code, for five minutes at a time.