Article content

The authorities are unanimous. They say on Tuesday the co-pilot of a Lufthansa subsidiary called Germanwings deliberately flew his passenger jet into a mountain in the French Alps. There were no survivors. Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, was virtually pulverized and all 150 souls on board perished.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or George Jonas: How terrorism made tragic Germanwings crash possible Back to video

I suggest they were the victims of terrorism.

This isn’t to disagree with the conclusion of the investigators. They’ve ample reasons for saying the co-pilot did it. The evidence implicating Andreas Lubitz, 27, a German national, is clearly visible on the radar tapes of air traffic control (ATC) and audible on the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recovered from the wreckage.

The radar tapes show Flight 9525 climbing uneventfully after departure from Barcelona-El Prat Airport to its assigned cruising altitude at 38,000 feet, flying level for a few minutes, making a slight course correction, then beginning a steep but controlled descent of more than eight minutes until it impacts the side of a mountain in southern France. The CVR records the last radio exchange with ATC, an acknowledgement of clearance to a waypoint called IRMAR, with the words coming from the flight deck: “Direct IRMAR, merci.” Then we hear the captain, Patrick Sonderheimer, a 6,000-hour veteran of Lufthansa, going for a washroom break, using the standard remark “You have control” as he relinquishes command to his colleague and closes the cockpit door behind himself.