Israel Matzav

Is Germanwings hiding something?

Here's a report from the Guardian's website on the ongoing search and rescue operations for Germanwings flight 9525, which crashed on Tuesday in the French Alps.

Let's go to the videotape. More after the video



The White House ruled out terrorism, but not everyone agrees. From the first link.

In Washington, the White House said the crash did not appear to have been caused by a terrorist attack. Lufthansa said it was working on the assumption that the tragedy had been an accident, adding that any other theory would be speculation. French president Francois Hollande will visit the area on Wednesday along with German chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy.

Germanwings said the plane started descending one minute after reaching its cruising height and continued losing altitude for eight minutes.

“The aircraft’s contact with French radar, French air traffic controllers, ended at 10.53 am at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. The plane then crashed,” Germanwings’ Managing Director Thomas Winkelmann told a news conference.

Winkelmann later said some Germanwings crew members had declared themselves unfit to fly, leading to some cancellations. “We understand that on a day like today, they wouldn’t feel able to fly,” he told German broadcaster ZDF.

Experts said that while the Airbus had descended rapidly, it did not seem to have simply fallen out of the sky.

A Lufthansa flight from Bilbao to Munich on Nov. 5 lost altitude after sensors iced over and the onboard computer, fearing the plane was about to stall, put the nose down. As a result, the European Aviation Safety Agency ordered a change in procedure for all A320 jets.

Asked whether something similar could have occurred on Tuesday, Winkelmann said, “At this time this evening, we are ruling out a possible cause in this area.”

Second link. 

France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, has told RTL radio all options must be looked into to explain why the Airbus A320 ploughed into an Alpine mountainside on Tuesday but a terrorist attack is not the most likely scenario.

And there were some strange goings on at a news conference yesterday (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News).

A journalist, speaking with a Spanish accent, asked during a press conference: “Germanwings this morning explained something about this flight, what do you think of that?”

It’s not clear to what she was referring but the Lufthansa representative seemed to understand.

Heike Birlenbach, Lufthansa vice-president for Europe initially blocked the question with a fairly standard ‘No Comment’ but then turned to her advisors and added in German.

“That was what he was not supposed to say.”

What was the question and why was it (apparently) not to be brought up at the press conference? Let's look at the press conference first.

Let's go to the videotape. 



I watched the press conferences given by Germanwings' CEO and by the Deputy Interior Minister of France, and I didn't find anything suspicious. Hmmm.

For now, I'm sticking with what I posted last night.

Labels: airport security, Egypt, France, Germanwings 9525 crash, Germany, Malaysia, Spain, suicide bombers

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:29 AM