CNN: Latest developments:
•10:04 a.m. ET: “If a person kills himself and also 149 other people, another word should be used — not suicide,” Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said Thursday.
•9:58 a.m.: Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, is providing “financial support” to relatives of the victims of Germanwings flight 9525, Spohr said . He declined to go into details.
• 9:56 a.m.: As a general practice, pilots in the Lufthansa group do not undergo psychological testing, Spohr said.
• 9:51 a.m.: Lufthansa does “not have any clues” about why the co-pilot crashed the plane that went down in the French Alps on Tuesday, Lufthansa CEO Spohr said.
• 9:47 a.m.: It’s not clear whether the Germanwings captain entered a code to try to get back into the cockpit, or whether the co-pilot in the cockpit had “put the lever on lock” that would have prevented the code from working even if the captain had entered it, Spohr said.
The co-pilot, 28-year-old German national Andreas Lubitz, had “interrupted” his training for several months and then completed it, which is not unusual, Spohr said.
Lubitz passed all flight examinations and medical examinations, and was “100% fit to fly,” Spohr said.
Full story:
It seems to have been no accident, officials said Thursday.
Information collected by investigators suggests the co-pilot who was in control of the Germanwings airplane when it crashed, killing all 150 people on board, was acting deliberately, the prosecutor said Thursday.
The co-pilot apparently “wanted to destroy the aircraft,” Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said.
Lufthansa officials are “speechless that this aircraft has been deliberately crashed by the co-pilot,” CEO Carsten Spohr said. The company owns Germanwings.
Categories: The Muslim Times
Do we know the religion of the co-pilot to decide if we can blame Islam?
The Muslim Times’ Collection on Islam’s Condemnation of Terrorism
Read more: http://www.themuslimtimes.org/2014/10/americas/the-muslim-times-collection-on-islams-condemnation-of-terrorism-2#ixzz3VVIygD1I
Quoting BBC:
The co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps, named as Andreas Lubitz, appeared to want to “destroy the plane”, officials said.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, citing information from the “black box” voice recorder, said the co-pilot was alone in the cockpit.
He intentionally started a descent while the pilot was locked out.
Mr Robin said there was “absolute silence in the cockpit” as the pilot fought to re-enter it.
He said air traffic controllers made repeated attempts to contact the aircraft, but to no avail. Passengers could be heard screaming just before the crash, he added.
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What happened in the final half hour?
Details are also emerging of the co-pilot’s past – although his apparent motives for causing the crash remain a mystery.
Mr Lubitz, 28, had undergone intensive training and “was 100% fit to fly without any caveats”, according to Carsten Spohr, the head of Lufthansa, the German carrier that owns Germanwings.
Mr Spohr said Mr Lubitz’s training had been interrupted briefly six years ago but was resumed after “the suitability of the candidate was re-established”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32063587
“Do we know the religion of the co-pilot to decide if we can blame Islam?”
That sounds like sarcasm, and seems rather inappropriate and tasteless in the wake of the loss of 150 lives. We don’t fully know what happened yet or why, so let’s wait and see, rather than trying to score political/religious/ideological points.
Those poor people and their poor families. Utterly horrific.
Of course a grave human tragedy and certainly much more so for the families of the victims than others.
The way forward to prevent such horrific tragedies is to embed the sacredness of human life in all minds, deriving it from all religions and philosophies.
Unfortunate reality is that national television media muddles the issue by calling innocent loss of human life, “terrorism,” only if the perpetrator is a Muslim. This takes away from the sacredness of human life and that is “to score political/religious/ideological points,” rather than my comment.
The Holy Quran precisely defines the infinite value of each and every human life and equates killing of one, with triggering of a genocide, in the often quoted verse:
“Unfortunate reality is that national television media muddles the issue by calling innocent loss of human life, “terrorism,” only if the perpetrator is a Muslim. This takes away from the sacredness of human life and that is “to score political/religious/ideological points,” rather than my comment.”
I respectfully disagree. Terrorism is defined as violence or intimidation for political or ideological means. If an act of violence is done in the name of Islam for example, then that is terrorism. Ditto for the politically/religiously motivated violence in Northern Ireland – that too was labelled terrorism, and correctly so.
It cannot be denied there have been countless acts terrorism done in the name of Islam, particularly in recent years. That doesn’t mean every act of violence or intimidation carried out by someone who happens to be a Muslim is an act of terrorism, but then nor is it labelled as such.
It’s early days, and we’re still to find out what this man’s motivation was, but whichever way you look at it it’s mass murder, and it doesn’t get worse than that.
All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 94% that Aren’t
Europol Report: All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 99.6% that Aren’t
Let Europol and Not the Main Stream Media Educate Us about Terrorism
To take own’s life is a suicide but to take 150 innocent lives intentionally is Terrorism. (May Allah keep their souls in his mercy)
But wait a minute! Oh I see he is not Muslim then…
he is a patient under treatment
he is suffering from neurotic bipolar disorder
he is shy, reserved and secluded
he is this, he is that and so on….
he just reminded of Andrea Brevik of Norway, a Christian terrorist who was covered by Norwegian authorities and media by labeling a pschcosis living in seclusion
@AQ
Your definition of terrorism appears to differ from the mainstream view. Mass murder and terrorism are not necessarily synonymous.
I would however agree that Anders Breivik is a terrorist. However, your final sentence is incorrect – among other offences, AB was convicted of terrorism, and rightly so.