INVESTIGATORS SAY ALPS CRASH WAS DELIBERATE
The co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps Monday, killing all 150 people on board, took sole control of plane and intentionally started the descent, officials say. He has been identified as 28-year-old German national Andreas Lubitz. The New York Times reports that voice recordings from one of the two black boxes that was recovered revealed the pilot left the cockpit and could not get back despite several attempts before the fatal descent.
- Investigators say the co-pilot is heard breathing “normally” on the recordings, and they have dismissed the theory of a health-related incident.
- A senior French military official who heard the recordings described the situation: “The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer. And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer. You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”
- The same official, who is part of the investigation, said the two pilots had a “very smooth, very cool” conversation during the early part of the flight, which took off from Barcelona and was heading to Dusseldorf.
- There was no communication from the cockpit to air traffic controllers during the 10-minute descent.
- The French prosecutor Brice Robin said in a press conference that Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane into a mountain after “purposefully” locking the pilot out of the cockpit and refusing to let him back in.
- Lubitz had 630 hours of flying experience, according to reports. He became a member of a flying club when he was a teenager. He then was a gliding student before qualifying as an Airbus 320 pilot with German airline Lufthansa.
- He was registered as living in the western German town of Montabaur with his parents.
- Prosecutor Robin said there were no terror-related suspicions concerning the co-pilot.
- Search teams continue to scour the hard-to-access area of the mountain. (Photo above: Chen Xiaowei/Xinhua/ZUMA)
- According to Le Monde, there are two simultaneous investigations by the Air Transport Gendarmerie and by the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety.
WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO
In just a few minutes, two technologies can print a sold-out or out-of-print book (or one that a reader simply wants to personalize) that looks exactly like the standard issue. Is this a game-changer for the publishing industry, asks Le Monde’s Alain Beuve-Méry? “The technology is ripe. For example, it is now possible to print — in just seven minutes — the 220 pages of Edouard Louis’ novel En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, one of France’s most successful 2014 fiction books with more than 200,000 copies sold.
With its white cover and red edges, the book printed in front of us is an exact replica of its big brother from the publishing house,” the journalist writes. “These new technologies can solve many traditional conundrums within the publishing industry.”
Read the full article, Amazon, Beware: How Print-It-Yourself Technology Could Save Publishing.
SAUDI LAUNCHES YEMEN AIRSTRIKES
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes in Yemen yesterday against the Iran-allied Houthi rebels besieging the southern city of Aden. That’s where the deposed, U.S.-backed President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi had taken refuge, Saudi news channel Al Arabiya reports.
- Three top Houthi military commanders were reported to have been killed during the strikes, along with at least 17 civilians.
- Hadi has fled his residence in Aden, U.S. officials have confirmed.
- The 10-country coalition participating in the so-called “Decisive Storm” operation includes the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, but not Oman), Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan and Sudan.
- Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir told reporters the operation aimed “to protect and defend the legitimate government” of Haiti. “We will do whatever it takes in order to protect the legitimate government of Yemen from falling,” he added.
- The U.S. has said it is coordinating closely with Saudi Arabia, as the White House had already voiced support for a campaign against the Houthi rebels.
- Iran and Syria have condemned the operation. The Iranian Foreign Ministry demanded an immediate halt of the campaign, describing it as a “military aggression,” Al Jazeera reports.
