The co-pilot thought to have had been trawling the Internet for ways to commit suicide and had sought out information online about the safety mechanisms on cockpit doors, German prosecutors said Thursday.
The information on ’s surfing activity came as another break in the case emerged in France, where authorities said Thursday that they had found the second of the Airbus A320’s two “black boxes” among the pulverized wreckage in the French Alps.
German officials said Lubitz had used a tablet computer between March 16 and 23 to search for information on “ways and implementation possibilities of killing himself,” as well as other unspecified “medical treatment methods.” On at least one day, investigators said, his browsing history also showed that he had spent “several minutes” on a site explaining the workings of cockpit locks and security systems.
Investigators said Sunday that they had seized an iPad among Lubitz’s belongings.
The new details added to an emerging picture of the co-pilot as a deeply troubled 27-year old who was battling serious mental health problems before stepping into the cockpit of Flight 9525, which was en route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, on March 24. All 144 passengers and six crew members aboard the plane died in the crash.
Authorities have previously said that, among his seized possessions, they found prescription medications that showed he was being treated for psychological problems including depression.
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The announcement on Thursday added to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the co-pilot’s mental state had severely deteriorated before the crash. On Tuesday, Lufthansa — the parent of Germanwings — said it had been informed in 2009, when he returned from a months-long break in his training, that Lubitz had previously suffered an “episode of severe depression.” The admission came several days after Lufthansa said it had received no prior information about his medical condition.
Lubitz, officials said, also had sought out treatment for vision issues, though it remains unclear whether such problems were real or psychosomatic. On Thursday, Germany’s Bild newspaper, citing investigators, reported that Lubitz had told doctors that his vision problems may have stemmed from a car crash in 2014, when the airbag in his vehicle went off. Lubitz said he has suffered “blast trauma” from the incident, saying his vision, at times, was darkening. But an MRI, the paper said, did not show any evidence of a real problem.
on Thursday, German authorities did not provide further details about which Web sites Lubitz had visited or what search terms he had used. Authorities were still plumbing through the items seized from Lubitz’s two homes, in Montabaur and Düsseldorf, including a laptop computer.
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In France, meanwhile, investigators announced they had found the aircraft’s second black box, a flight data recorder.
The first black box, found shortly after the crash, was the voice recorder that captured conversations on the plane, including sounds that led investigators to conclude that Lubitz had locked himself inside the cockpit and refused to let his more experienced captain back in. It captured the frantic sounds of the pilot demanding to let back in and attempting to break down the door, even as passengers are heard screaming in the final moments before the crash.
The second black box, however, is the recorder that captures a vast array of systems data, including course changes and other information entered into the plane’s computer system from the cockpit. Analysts said the data, once retrieved, could help provide a more detailed picture of what happened on board. It could also confirm air traffic control monitoring data that showed the plane entered a sharp but controlled descent, apparently after Lubitz took the aircraft off autopilot and set a collision course for a corner of the Alps where he was known to vacation.
“The flight data recorder allows insight into everything the pilots did in the cockpit, the settings they made, the speed of the plane, the rate of descent,” said Peter Pletschacher, president of the German Aviation Writers Association. “It is important to confirm what we indirectly know from the voice recorder by analyzing the sounds, such as the clicking of switches.”
Meanwhile, German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt and the German Aviation Association, which represents Lufthansa, Germanwings and other airlines, announced a new task force to study whether procedural changes are needed on commercial flights, including possible alternations to cockpit doors and mental health screening for pilots.
But they also expressed caution about implementing changes before the full details of last week’s crash were clear. Klaus-Peter Siegloch, president of the association, also warned against alterations to Germany’s strict medical privacy laws, warning that such a move could prompt pilots to skip treatment altogether.
“At the end, nothing would be gained if we have a loosening of medical confidentiality,” Siegloch said.
Stephanie Kirchner contributed to this report.
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