Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was 'normal, friendly man'

Germanwings flight 4U9525's co-pilot, with 630 hours’ flying time under his belt, was regarded by colleagues, friends and neighbours as a normal, friendly man

Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz
Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz

Andreas Lubitz, 28, from the town of Montabaur in Rhineland-Palatinate, has been named as the co-pilot of Germanwings flight 4U9525. He appears to have deliberately crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

While the captain and crew banged on the cockpit door during the descent, Lubitz was said to have been breathing normally.

A first officer, Lubitz had been flying for Germanwings since September 2013 after being trained with the airline’s parent company, Lufthansa, in Bremen. He had clocked up 630 hours in the air.

The Lufthansa chief executive, Carsten Spohr, said Lubitz had passed all the psychological tests required for training and undergone regular physical examinations.

He told a press conference on Thursday that Lubitz had started training in 2008 – first working as a flight attendant – and there was nothing unusual in the results of his training, but acknowledged there had been a gap without saying what had caused it.

Aviation had long been an important part of his life. Members of the Luftsportclub Westerwald, a flying club of which Lubitz had been a member since he was a teenager in Montabaur, said it had always been his dream to fly.

“Andreas became a member of the association and wanted his dream of flying to be realised. He began in the gliding school and made it to become a pilot,” a statement on the club’s website said.

A long-time member, Peter Rücker, who watched Lubitz learn to fly, said he had been upbeat when he returned to the club last autumn to renew his glider pilot’s licence.

“He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well,” he told Associated Press. “He was very happy. He gave off a good feeling.”

Rücker said he remembered Lubitz as “rather quiet but friendly” when he first showed up at the club as a 14- or 15-year-old saying he wanted to learn to fly.

At the house believed to be his parents’, the curtains were drawn and four police cars were parked outside. Neighbours described Lubitz as a friendly man pursuing his dreams “with vigour”. One told the local newspaper, the Rhein-Zeitung, that Lubitz had kept fit through running: “How often we saw him jogging past our house.”

A resident of the town who knew Lubitz told RTL radio: “He was completely normal. He was very happy to have his job. He was satisfied and happy. He had attained his dream of having become a professional pilot after being an amateur. He had no problems. I did not think he could do such a thing.”

A recently deleted Facebook page bearing Lubitz’s name showed him as a smiling man in a brown jacket posing in front of the Golden Gate bridge in California.

The page offered few clues as to why the 28-year-old might have deliberately crashed the plane. It suggested he was an unremarkable young man – interested in flying and gadgets, as befits a pilot, as well as electronic music, discos and tenpin bowling.

His likes included Lufthansa and LFT Bremen, one of five Lufthansa facilities around the world offering pilot training. It also linked to the Airbus A320 technical site and to Beechcraft Bonanza, a page dedicated to an American six-seater light aircraft. There is a mention of Alexander Gerst, the German astronaut who last year blasted off to the International Space Station.

Much of Lubitz’s social life appears to have taken place in the nearby city of Koblenz. There are links to a climbing wall, Kletterwald Sayn, located in a forest, a local bowling alley, Pinup, and one of Koblenz’s nightclub’s, the Agostea Nachtarena. And to a branch of Burger King. His favourite music acts appear to have been Paul Kalkbrenner, a German electronic producer, and David Guetta, a French DJ turned record producer. He also liked Bose speakers.

The pilot also appeared to have had a sense of humour. One website on Lubitz’s Facebook profile was Wenn Männer alleine sind or (When Men are Alone) – not a place for lonely singles but a humorous website that includes videos of men fooling about with chainsaws on frozen lakes, or haplessly looking after babies. It features an image of a man lighting a fart. Someone has posted in the comments section in German: “I love being a man.”

Investigators are likely to delve into Lubitz’s personal life to uncover any clues about his mental state.

Robert Bor, an aviation psychologist, said: “The very first thing the aviation authorities and investigators will do is go through his personal background and look at his professional life, in terms of his relationships, finances, flying record and medical record.

“They will also be interviewing pilots he has flown with over the last few weeks to see if there is anything about his behaviour, attitude or professional conduct that could be potentially relevant here,” Bor said.

“It’s an extremely rare thing for a pilot to crash his own plane.”