Germanwings Pilot Had Converted to Islam-Investigation Pending!
Summary of eRumor:
A Germanwings airbus crash in the French Alps that killed 150 people was an act of terror because Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had converted to a radical form of Islam before the crash.
The Truth:
There has been a lot of speculation about why Germanwings co-pilot Andrea Lubitz intentionally flew an airplane into a mountain, but there’s no clear answer yet.
The Germanwings airbus crashed into the French Alps on March 24, 2015. Two days later, Germanwings said in a statement that the crash “appeared” to be a deliberate act by co-pilot Andrea Lubitz:
“We are horrified to discover today that the aircraft that crashed in the south of France appears to have been crashed deliberately – probably by the co-pilot of flight 4U9525. Based on audio taken from the voice recorder, the French authorities have come to the conclusion that after the aircraft had reached cruising altitude, the captain left the cockpit for a short time and was then unable to re-enter. It appears that the co-pilot, who had stayed in the cockpit, prevented the captain from re-entering by fully locking the cockpit door in order to then initiate the fatal descent. All Germanwings and Lufthansa employees are deeply shocked. We could never have imagined that a tragedy like this could occur within our company.”
It’s not yet known why Andreas Lubitz would deliberately fly the plane into the side of a mountain. Early reports indicated that Lubitz had been treated for mental illness in the past and had previously attempted suicide.
French authorities found a torn up sick note from a doctor that would have excused Andreas Lubitz from work on the day of the crash, but the reason for the note hasn’t been revealed. Germanwings said that Lubitz didn’t submit the sick note to them.
German officials said that Andreas Lubitz had hid “an unspecified medical condition” from his employers, the Telegraph reports:
“The fact there are sick notes saying he was unable to work, among other things, that were found torn up, which were recent and even from the day of the crime, support the assumption based on the preliminary examination that the deceased hid his illness from his employer and his professional colleagues.
“The prosecutors said in a statement that the documents were found in searches of Lubitz’s homes in Duesseldorf and in the town of Montabaur in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
“The Uniklinik hospital in Dusseldorf confirmed that it had treated Lubitz in recent weeks but said it was not for depression.
“Meanwhile Bild, the German newspaper, reported that ‘Lubitz had a serious relationship crisis with his girlfriend before the disaster and the resulting heartbreak is thought to have led to this.’”
Just before the crash, Andreas Lubitz’s pregnant girlfriend broke up with him. Her friends said Lubitz was a “tormented and erratic man” who suffered from unpredictable behavior and mood swings. He had also been having an affair with a Germanwings flight attendant in the months leading up to the crash, the Daily Mail reports.
Early indicators suggest that Andreas Lubitz suffered from mental illness and that led him to deliberately crash the airplane.
Sill, other theories claim that it was an act of terrorism and that Lubitz had converted to a radical form of Islam.
One of those claims comes from the German blog site Pi-News:
“All evidence indicates that the copilot of Airbus machine in his six-months break during his training as a pilot in Germanwings, converted to Islam and subsequently either by the order of ‘radical,’ ie. devout Muslim , or received the order from the book of terror, the Quran, on his own accord decided to carry out this mass murder. As a radical mosque in Bremen is in the center of the investigation, in which the convert was staying often, it can be assumed that he — as Mohammed Atta, in the attack against New York — received his instructions directly from the immediate vicinity of the mosque.”
That report has been repeated by a number of blog sites across the web. However, Pi-News isn’t a trustworthy news source. The website describes itself as against “the mainstream, America, Israel, basic and human laws and the fight against the Islamisation of Europe.”
Officials in France and Germany have not said that the crash could have been an act of terrorism, but the investigation is ongoing.