Forensics teams have identified 78 DNA strands from body parts spread across the remote mountainside in the French Alps where Germanwings flight 4U9525 crashed, killing all 150 people on board.
Rescuers are still, however, to locate the plane’s second black box, its flight data recorder, six days after the Barcelona to Dusseldorf flight crashed into a rocky ravine at 700km/h.
Between 400 and 600 body parts have been located and are being examined.
Identification experts were using dental records, DNA samples from family members, fingerprints, jewellery and bits of ID card to help the process.
The data recorder, which weighs about 10kg, was originally in a protective casing, but only the casing has been found.
Prosecutors in France and Germany have suggested co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane. They retrieved a torn-up sick note from his flat in Dusseldorf, dated for the day of the disaster. Lubitz, who is from the small German town of Montabaur, had a history of depression which he hid from his employer and colleagues, they said.
The suicide-mass murder theory is based on the cockpit voice recorder retrieved from the crash site near the village of Le Vernet. According to Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper, the captain, Patrick Sondenheimer, asked Lubitz to prepare the plane to land in Dusseldorf. Lubitz responded "laconically". Sondenhemir then left the cockpit to go to the toilet, telling his co-pilot: "You can take over."
There was a sound of a seat being pushed back, and the door clicking shut. According to Bild, the plane then went into a steady descent. Minutes later there is a loud knocking and the voice of the captain saying: "For God's sake open the door." In the final moments passengers' screams can be heard.
Caution urged
German and European pilots’ associations both urged caution last week in stating the cause of the crash until the second black box is discovered and the air accident investigation is brought to a conclusion.
Jean-Pierre Michel, the head of the French investigation agency, said that some technical details of what happened to the Airbus A320 aircraft were still missing. “At the moment we can’t rule out the hypothesis of a technical fault,” he said.
The German chief executive of the Airbus Group, Tom Enders, expressed his irritation yesterday and criticised talk-show coverage of the crash. “There has been speculation without facts, fantasy and lies,” he said. Such “outrageous nonsense” mocked the victims, he added.
In Montabaur, where Lubitz lived part of the time with his father, mother and younger brother, prayers were said yesterday for the victims of the crash, and for the co-pilot and his grieving family. Hundreds of worshippers packed into St Peter’s Catholic church on the town’s main street.
Many there believed that investigators had been too quick to blame Lubitz for the disaster. – (Guardian service)