CNN news 2015-03-31 加文本

cnn news 2015-03-31

Hi. I'm Carl Azuz for cnn Student News. We're start today with a major update on a story you heard earlier this week, the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525, a passenger plane in the French Alps.

The most plausible, likely interpretation, in our view, is that the co-pilot, through deliberate abstention, refused to open the cockpit door to the chief pilot and used the button which controls loss of altitude. In the last eight minutes, this aircraft went from maybe 10,000, 12,000 meters or 30,000 feet to virtually 2,000 meters. So he used this button for -- to lose altitude for reasons that are totally unknown at the moment but which could be analyzed as a deliberate attempt to destroy the aircraft.

How did officials reach that conclusion? They got information from a flight data recorder. The plane had two of them. One was found. Investigators are still searching for the other. All 150 people aboard were killed, among them, a group of students. Friends and mourners at schools across the region gathered to remember them and share a moment of silence in their honor. Families all over the world are grieving. As you heard a moment ago, investigators have no idea why co-pilot Andreas Lubitz allegedly locked the pilot out of the cockpit and then crashed the plane. The mechanism that locks the cockpit door is designed to be used by pilots only and intended for everyone's security.

I'm in an A320 simulator. This is an exact replica of the modern cockpit of the 320. I'm with Bugs Forsythe. You're a retired military pilot, flew commercially for nearly 30 years. We're flying at 38,000 feet. Tell me about the cockpit door.

Very quickly, it's right here. Either pilot, left or right, co-pilot or captain, can touch it. It's in the armed -- excuse me -- the normal position. This is spring-loaded. If I want to unlock it, I unlock it and that unlocks the door, they can come in. But it's spring-loaded back to normal. In the norm position, the door cannot be opened by the regular knob. You have to have either a keypad to open it or I have to unlock it.

The only way the pilot or the co-pilot cannot get in, then, in a modern plane with a keypad, is by someone purposefully locking them out.

Holding it -- and holding it in the locked position.

It is so difficult to try to get my head wrapped around this that we have the procedures in place. Of course, with the events of September 11th, we need to ensure the cockpit is secure at all times during flight, ensuring that the pilots are the only ones that have access to the cockpit and have the ability to secure that cockpit is a requirement for security. This definitely changes the calculus and some really big thought is going to be needed to put into this situation to ensure safety in the future.