Germanwings Flight 9525 was a scheduled

international passenger flight An international flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the departure and the arrival take place in different countries. Regular international passenger air service began in August 1919 with a flight going from Londo ...

from Barcelona–El Prat Airport in Spain to

Düsseldorf Airport Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the seventh-largest city in Germany, with a 2022 population of 629,047. The Düsse ...

in Germany. The flight was operated by

Germanwings Germanwings GmbH was a German low-cost airline wholly owned by Lufthansa which operated under the Eurowings brand. It was based in Cologne with hubs at Cologne Bonn Airport, Stuttgart Airport, Hamburg Airport, Berlin Tegel Airport, Munich ...

, a

low-cost carrier A low-cost carrier (LCC) or low-cost airline, also called a budget, or discount carrier or airline, is an airline that is operated with an emphasis on minimizing operating costs. It sacrifices certain traditional airline luxuries for cheaper fa ...

owned by the German airline

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), trading as the Lufthansa Group, is a German aviation group. Its major and founding subsidiary airline Lufthansa German Airlines, branded as Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. It ranks List of largest airlin ...

. On 2015, the aircraft, an

Airbus A320-211 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the fami ...

, crashed north-west of

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million French Alps The French Alps are the portions of the Alps mountain range that stand within France, located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions. While some of the ranges of the French Alps are entirely in France, others, such a ...

, killing all 150 people on board. The crash was deliberately caused by the

co-pilot In aviation, the first officer (FO), also called co-pilot, is a pilot in addition to the captain, who is the legal commander. In the event of incapacitation of the captain, the first officer will assume command of the aircraft. Requirement Hi ...

, Andreas Lubitz, who had previously been treated for

suicidal tendencies Suicidal Tendencies is an American crossover thrash band formed in 1980 in Venice, California, by vocalist Mike Muir. The band has undergone various lineup changes, with Muir as the only remaining original member. Their current lineup includes ...

and declared unfit to work by his doctor. Lubitz kept this information from his employer and instead reported for duty. Shortly after reaching cruise altitude and while the captain was out of the

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, on the front part of an aircraft, spacecraft, or submersible, from which a pilot controls the vehicle. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls th ...

, Lubitz locked the cockpit door and set the plane to fly downward in a controlled descent into a mountain. Aviation authorities swiftly implemented new recommendations from the

European Union Aviation Safety Agency The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Commission with responsibility for civil aviation safety in the European Union. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs inve ...

that required at least two authorised persons to be in the cockpit at all times but, by 2017, this rule had been dropped. The Lubitz family held a press conference on 24 March 2017 (the 2nd anniversary of the crash) during which Lubitz's father said that they did not accept the official investigative findings that their son deliberately caused the crash. By 2017, Lufthansa had paid €75,000 to the family of every victim, as well as €10,000 in

pain and suffering Pain and suffering is the legal term for the physical and emotional stress caused from an injury (see also pain and suffering). Some damages that might come under this category would be: aches, temporary and permanent limitations on activity, ...

compensation to every close relative of a victim.

Flight

Flight 9525 took off from Runway 06R at Barcelona–El Prat Airport on 2015 at 10:01 am

CET CET or cet may refer to: Places * Cet, Albania * Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus * Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England Arts, entertainment, and media * Comcast En ...

(09:01

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

), 26 minutes behind schedule. It was due to arrive at

by 11:39 CET. According to the French national civil aviation inquiries bureau, the

Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety The Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (, BEA) is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and incidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those inve ...

(BEA), the pilots confirmed instructions from French

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled air ...

at 10:30 CET. At 10:31 CET, after crossing the French coast near

Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...

, the aircraft left its assigned cruising altitude of and without approval began to descend rapidly. The

air traffic controller An Air traffic controller (ATC) is a person responsible for the coordination of traffic in their assigned airspace. Typically stationed in area control centers or control towers, they monitor the position, speed, and altitude of aircraft and c ...

declared the aircraft in distress after its descent and loss of radio contact. The descent time from 38,000 ft was about 10 minutes; radar observed an average descent rate around 3,400 ft/min (). Attempts by French air traffic control to contact the flight on the assigned radio frequency were not answered. A French military

Mirage A mirage is a naturally-occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French ''(se) mirer'', from the Latin ''mirari'', mean ...

jet was scrambled from the

Orange-Caritat Air Base Air Base 115 Orange-Caritat ( or ''BA 115'', ) is a French Air and Space Force (''Armée de l'air et de l'espace'') base in Vaucluse, France. It is equipped with one runway and was named after Maurice de Seynes, a French-Soviet aircraft pilot. It ...

to intercept the aircraft. Radar contact was lost at 10:40 CET; at the time, the aircraft had descended to , and crashed in the remote commune of

Prads-Haute-Bléone Prads-Haute-Bléone (; ''Prats Auta Blèuna'' in Vivaro-Alpine dialect, Vivaro-Alpine) is a Communes of France, commune in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Departments of France, department and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, r ...

, north-west of

seismological Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

station of the Sismalp network run by the Grenoble Observatory, from the crash site, recorded the associated seismic event, determining the impact time as 10:41:05 CET.

Crash site

The crash site is within the

Massif des Trois-Évêchés Massif des Trois-Évêchés (; ; ) is a mountain range in the Provence Alps and Prealps in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France. Its name comes from the central summit of the massif, the Pic des Trois-Évêchés (so named because it marked the boundar ...

, east of the settlement Le Vernet and beyond the road to the Col de Mariaud, in an area known as the Ravin du Rosé. The aircraft crashed on the southern side of the Tête du Travers, a minor peak in the lower western slopes of the

Tête de l'Estrop The Tête de l'Estrop is a mountain of the French Prealps located in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France. It is the highest peak of the Provence Alps and Prealps. Geography Administratively the mountain is divided between the French communes ...

, at an elevation of . The aircraft was travelling at when it struck the mountain. The site is about west of Mount Cimet, where Air France Flight 178 crashed in 1953. Gendarmerie nationale and

Sécurité Civile The (General directorate for civil defense and crisis management) is a civil defense agency of the Government of France, French Government. It operates for the Minister of the Interior (France), Ministry of the Interior and employs some 2,500 civ ...

sent helicopters to locate the wreckage. The aircraft had disintegrated; the largest piece of wreckage was the size of a car. A helicopter landed near the crash site; its personnel confirmed that there were no survivors. The

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

team reported the debris field covered .

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

147,

registered Registered may refer to: * Registered mail, letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and in need of a chain of custody * Registered trademark symbol, symbol ® that provides notice that the preceding is a trademark or service ...

as D-AIPX. The aircraft had accumulated about 58,300 flight hours on 46,700 flights. During its final flight, the aircraft was carrying 144 passengers and six crew (two pilots and four

cabin crew A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

members) of 19 different nationalities.

Passengers and crew

Among the passengers were 16 students and 2 teachers from the Joseph-König-Gymnasium of

Haltern am See Haltern am See (''Haltern at the lake'', before December 2001 only Haltern) is a medium-sized town in the northern part of the Recklinghausen (district), district of Recklinghausen in the Münster (region), ''Regierungsbezirk'' Münster in North Rh ...

, North Rhine-Westphalia. They were returning home from a student exchange with the Giola Institute in

Llinars del Vallès Llinars del Vallès () is a village and a municipality in the comarca of Vallès Oriental, in the province of Barcelona and autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. That village forms part of the county of Baix Montseny. Its municipal term goes ...

, Barcelona. Haltern's mayor, Bodo Klimpel, described the crash as "the darkest day in the history of hetown". Bass-baritone Oleg Bryjak and

contralto A contralto () is a classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range is the lowest of their voice type, voice types. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare, similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to ...

Maria Radner, singers with

Deutsche Oper am Rhein The Deutsche Oper am Rhein (German Opera on the Rhine) is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company. Axel Kober has been its music director since 2009. The resident orchestra, t ...

, were also on the flight. Also among the passengers were two

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

journalists and analysts returning home after covering

El Clásico El Clásico (in Spanish, also in lowercase letters; ) or El Clàssic (in Catalan, ), both meaning "The Classic", is the name given to any football match between rival clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid. Originally referring to competitions he ...

between

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça (), is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of ...

and

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional Football club (association football), football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, th ...

two days prior. The flight's

pilot in command The pilot in command (PIC) of an aircraft is the person aboard an aircraft who is ultimately responsible for its operation and safety during flight. This would be the captain in a typical two- or three- pilot aircrew, or "pilot" if there is only ...

was 34-year-old Captain Patrick Sondenheimer, who had 10 years' experience (6,000 flight hours, including 3,812 hours on the Airbus A320) flying A320s for Germanwings, Lufthansa, and

Condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua language, Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. One species, the And ...

. The

was 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, who joined Germanwings in September 2013 and had 630 flying hours, 540 of them on the Airbus A320.

Andreas Lubitz

Co-pilot Andreas Günter Lubitz, born on 18 December 1987, was raised in

Neuburg an der Donau Neuburg an der Donau (Central Bavarian: ''Neiburg an da Donau'') is a town which is the capital of the Neuburg-Schrobenhausen district in the state of Bavaria in Germany. Divisions The municipality has 16 divisions: * Altmannstetten * Bergen, N ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, and

Montabaur Montabaur () is a town and the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. At the same time, it is also the administrative centre of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Montabaur – a kind of collective municipality – to wh ...

in the German state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

. He took flying lessons at Luftsportclub Westerwald, an aviation sports club in Montabaur. Lubitz was accepted into a Lufthansa trainee programme after finishing high school. In September 2008, he began training at the

Lufthansa Flight Training Lufthansa Aviation Training GmbH is the flight academy subsidiary of Lufthansa, that trains Lufthansa Group pilots as well as cabin and technical staff. The company has about 500 employees and has been in business for around 50 years. Operations ...

school in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...

, Germany. He suspended his pilot training in November 2008 after being hospitalised for a severe episode of depression. After his

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

determined that the depressive episode was fully resolved, Lubitz returned to the Lufthansa school in August 2009. Lubitz moved to the United States in November 2010 to continue training at the Lufthansa Airline Training Center in

Goodyear, Arizona Goodyear is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. It is a suburb of Phoenix and at the 2020 census had a population of 95,294, up from 65,275 in 2010 and 18,911 in 2000. The city is home to the Goodyear Ballpark, where the Clev ...

. From June 2011 to December 2013, he worked as a

flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

for Lufthansa while training to obtain his commercial pilot's licence, and joined Germanwings as a first officer in June 2014.

Investigation

The French

(BEA) opened an investigation into the crash; it was joined by its German counterpart, the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU). The BEA investigation was led by Arnaud Desjardin and was assisted by the United States

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

. Hours after the crash, the BEA sent seven investigators to the site; these were accompanied by representatives from

Airbus Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...

and

CFM International CFM International is a Franco-American aircraft engine manufacturer. The company is a joint venture between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines (formerly known as Snecma) and is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1974 to bu ...

. The

cockpit voice recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to colloquially as a "black box", an outdated nam ...

, which was damaged but still functional, was recovered by rescue workers and examined by the investigation team. The following week, Brice Robin, the government prosecutor based in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

, announced that the

flight data recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to colloquially as a "black box", an outdated nam ...

, blackened by fire but still usable, had also been found. Investigators isolated 150 sets of

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

, which were compared with the DNA of the victims' families.

Cause of crash

According to French and German prosecutors, the crash was deliberately caused by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz. Robin said Lubitz was courteous to Captain Sondenheimer during the first part of the flight, then became "curt" when the captain began the midflight briefing on the planned landing. Robin said that when the captain left the cockpit, possibly to use the toilet, Lubitz locked the door and overrode the door code from the inside, preventing anyone from entering. The captain requested re-entry using the intercom; he knocked and then banged on the door, but received no response. The captain then tried to break down the door, but like most cockpit doors made after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, it had been reinforced to prevent intrusion. During the descent, the co-pilot did not respond to questions from Marseille air traffic control, nor did he transmit a distress call. Robin said contact from the air traffic control tower, the captain's attempts to break in, and Lubitz's steady breathing were audible on the cockpit voice recording. The screams of passengers in the last moments before impact were also heard on the recording. After their initial analysis of the aircraft's flight data recorder, the BEA concluded that Lubitz had made flight control inputs that led to the crash. He had set the autopilot to descend to and accelerated the speed of the descending aircraft several times thereafter. The BEA preliminary report into the crash was published six weeks later, on 6 May 2015. It confirmed the initial analysis of the aircraft's flight data recorder and revealed that during the earlier outbound Flight 9524 from Düsseldorf to Barcelona, Lubitz had practised setting the autopilot altitude dial to 100 ft several times while the captain was out of the cockpit. The BEA final report into the crash was published on 13 March 2016. The report confirmed the findings made in the preliminary report and concluded that Lubitz had deliberately crashed the aircraft as a

murder–suicide A murder–suicide is an act where an individual intentionally kills one or more people before killing themselves. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms: * Suicide after or during murder inflicted on others ** Suicide af ...

. The report stated:

Investigation of Lubitz

Three days after the crash, German detectives searched Lubitz's Montabaur properties and removed a computer and other items for testing. They did not find a

suicide note A suicide note or death note is a message written by a person who intends to die by suicide. A study examining Japanese suicide notes estimated that 25–30% of suicides are accompanied by a note. However, incidence rates may depend on ethnic ...

nor any evidence that his actions had been motivated by "a political or religious background". During their search of Lubitz's apartment, detectives found a letter written by a doctor indicating Lubitz had been declared unfit to work. Germanwings stated it had not received a sick note from Lubitz for the day of the flight. News accounts said Lubitz was "hiding an illness from his employers". Under German law, employers do not have access to employees' medical records, and sick notes excusing people from work do not give information about medical conditions, so employers must rely on employees to declare their lack of work fitness. The following day, authorities again searched Lubitz's home where they found evidence he suffered from a

psychosomatic illness Somatic symptom disorder, also known as somatoform disorder or somatization disorder, is chronic somatization. One or more chronic physical symptoms coincide with excessive and maladaptive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors connected to those sympt ...

and had been prescribed two

antidepressants Antidepressants are a class of medications used to treat major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, chronic pain, and addiction. Common side effects of antidepressants include dry mouth, weight gain, dizziness, headaches, akathisia, sexu ...

escitalopram Escitalopram ( ), sold under the brand names Lexapro and Cipralex, among others, is an antidepressant medication of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class. It is mainly used to treat major depressive disorder, generalized ...

and

mirtazapine Mirtazapine, sold under the brand name Remeron among others, is an atypical antidepressant, atypical tetracyclic antidepressant, and as such is used primarily to treat Depression (mood), depression. Its effects may take up to four weeks but ca ...

, and a sleep medication,

zopiclone Zopiclone, sold under the brand name Imovane among others, is a nonbenzodiazepine, specifically a cyclopyrrolone, used to treat difficulty sleeping. Zopiclone is molecularly distinct from benzodiazepine drugs and is classed as a cyclopyrrolone ...

. Toxicological examination of Lubitz post-mortem revealed the presence of all three. Escitalopram, a

selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a class of drugs that are typically used as antidepressants in the treatment of major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and other psychological conditions. SSRIs primarily work by blo ...

, is associated with a risk of

suicidal thoughts Suicidal ideation, or suicidal thoughts, is the thought process of having ideas or ruminations about the possibility of dying by suicide.World Health Organization, ''ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics'', ver. 09/2020MB26.A Suicidal i ...

and behaviours, especially soon after treatment is commenced. Lubitz was prescribed escitalopram nine days before the crash. Criminal investigators said Lubitz had then, in the week before, researched online "ways to commit suicide" and "cockpit doors and their security provisions". Robin said doctors had told him Lubitz should not have been flying, but medical secrecy requirements prevented his physician from making this information available to Germanwings. Such secrecy should consider public safety, said BEA investigator Arnaud Desjardin. The investigation into Lubitz revealed his treatment for

prior to his training as a commercial pilot, when he had been temporarily denied a US pilot's licence because of treatments for

psychotic depression Psychotic depression, also known as depressive psychosis, is a major depressive episode that is accompanied by psychotic symptoms.Hales E and Yudofsky JA, eds, The American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Psychiatry, Washington, DC: American Psych ...

. For years, Lubitz had frequently been unable to sleep because of what he believed were vision problems; he consulted over 40 doctors, fearing he was going blind. Motivated by the fear that blindness would cause him to lose his pilot's licence, he began conducting online research about methods of committing suicide before deciding to crash Flight 9525.

Aftermath

French

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

Bernard Cazeneuve Bernard Guy Georges Cazeneuve (; born 2 June 1963) is a French politician and lawyer who served as Prime Minister of France from 6 December 2016 to 15 May 2017. He represented Manche's 5th constituency in the National Assembly from 1997 to 200 ...

announced that due to the "violence of the impact", "little hope" existed that any survivors would be found. Then-Prime Minister

Manuel Valls Manuel Carlos Valls Galfetti (born 13August 1962) is a French–Spanish politician who serves as Minister of the Overseas in the Bayrou government since 2024. He served as Prime Minister of France from 2014 until 2016 under president Françoi ...

dispatched Cazeneuve to the scene and set up a ministerial task force to coordinate the response to the incident. German

Foreign Minister In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

Frank-Walter Steinmeier Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician who has served as President of Germany since 2017. He was previously Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany), federal minister for foreign affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again f ...

flew over the crash site, describing it as "a picture of horror". German

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

and the minister-president of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

Hannelore Kraft Hannelore Kraft (née Külzhammer, 12 June 1961) is a German politician. She served as the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2010 until 2017. Kraft was the first woman to serve as head of government of this state and was the thi ...

travelled to the crash site the following day. Merkel, Valls, and Spanish Prime Minister

Mariano Rajoy Mariano Rajoy Brey (, ; born 27 March 1955) is a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018, when a 2018 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy, vote of no confidence ousted his government. A m ...

visited the recovery operations base at Seyne-les-Alpes. Bodo Klimpel, mayor of

, reacting to the deaths of 16 students and 2 teachers from the town, said that people were shocked by the crash. Germanwings Headquarter 2015 4

Lufthansa

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Carsten Spohr Carsten Spohr (born 16 December 1966) is a German airline executive. Since May 2014 he has been the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Lufthansa. Education After graduating with a degree in industrial engineering and management from th ...

visited the crash location the day following the crash; he said it was "the darkest day for Lufthansa in its 60-year history". Several Germanwings flights were cancelled on 24 and 25 March due to the pilots' grief at the murders and at the loss of their colleagues. Germanwings retired the flight number 4U9525, changing it to 4U9441; the outbound flight number was changed from 4U9524 to 4U9440. In the days following the crash, Lufthansa at first said it saw no reason to change its procedures, then reversed its earlier statement by introducing a new policy across its airlines requiring the presence of two crew members in the cockpit at all times.

Regulatory

In response to the incident and the circumstances of the co-pilot's involvement, aviation authorities in some countries implemented new regulations that require the presence of two authorised personnel in the cockpit at all times. Three days after the incident, the

European Aviation Safety Agency The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Commission with responsibility for civil aviation safety in the European Union. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs inve ...

issued a temporary recommendation for airlines to ensure that at least two crew members—including at least one pilot—were in the cockpit for the entire duration of the flight. Several airlines announced that they had already adopted similar policies voluntarily. But by 2016, the EASA stopped recommending the two-person rule, instead advising airlines to perform a risk assessment and decide for themselves whether to implement it. Germanwings and other German airlines dropped the procedure in 2017. The

British Psychological Society The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. History It was founded on 24 October 1901 at University College London (UCL) as ''The Psychological Society'', the org ...

issued a statement offering expert support in psychological testing and monitoring of pilots. The

European Federation of Psychologists' Associations The European Federation of Psychologists' Associations-EFPA is the umbrella organization of national Learned society, societies in the field of psychology that are located in the European Economic Area. History The federation was founded in 198 ...

issued a statement supporting psychological testing in the selection of pilots, but also stated it could not forecast the life events and mental health problems of individual pilots, nor could it predict the unique ways pilots would cope with these. It said priority should be given to psychological help for relatives and friends of victims in the aftermath of a disaster. CEO Spohr proposed random checks of pilots' psychological fitness and a loosening of the extant physician–patient confidentiality laws. Politicians began echoing the call to loosen the laws in exceptional cases. The national police force in France, the

National Gendarmerie The National Gendarmerie ( ) is one of two national law enforcement forces of France, along with the National Police (France), National Police. The Gendarmerie is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed under the jurisdiction of the Minister ...

, introduced a new set of support mechanisms to minimise the psychosocial risks to relief workers who deal with events such as Flight 9525 in their daily jobs.

Compensation and litigation

Germanwings' parent company Lufthansa offered victims' families an initial aid payment up to €50,000, separate from any legally required compensation for the disaster. Elmar Giemulla, a professor of aviation law at

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

quoted by the ''

Rheinische Post ''Rheinische Post'' () is a major German regional daily newspaper published since 1946 by the ''Rheinische Post Verlagsgesellschaft GmbH'' company, and headquartered in Düsseldorf. The Post is especially dominant in the western part of North Rhi ...

'', said he expected the airline would pay a total of €10–30 million in compensation. The

Montreal Convention The Montreal Convention (formally, the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air) is a multilateral treaty adopted by a diplomatic meeting of ICAO member states in 1999. It amended important provisions of ...

sets a per-victim cap of €143,000 in the event an airline is held liable, unless negligence can be proven. Insurance specialists said although co-pilot Andreas Lubitz hid a serious illness from his employer and deliberately crashed the passenger aircraft, these facts would not affect the issue of compensation nor be applicable to the exclusion clause in Lufthansa's insurance policy. Lufthansa's insurance company set aside US$300 million (€280 million) for financial compensation to victims' families and for the cost of the aircraft. By 2017, Lufthansa had paid €75,000 to the family of every victim, as well as €10,000 in pain and suffering compensation to every close relative of a victim. Victim families sued the Lufthansa Airline Training Center in Arizona to obtain higher compensation, but the case was reverted to German courts in March 2017. In July 2020, a court in

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

ruled against several victim families, holding that neither Lufthansa nor the training centre in Arizona could be held liable. Flight doctors who may have negligently authorised Lubitz to fly were working on behalf of the German government's flight authority, the

Luftfahrt-Bundesamt The ''Luftfahrt-Bundesamt'' (LBA, "Federal Aviation Office") is the national civil aviation authority of Germany headquartered in Braunschweig.coroner's inquest A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death. The official may also investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...

into the deaths of two British victims concluded with a verdict of unlawful killing.

Commemorative

4U 9525 Gemeinschaftsgrab in Le Vernet - 8403

Shortly after the crash, a memorial stone in memory of the victims was erected near the crash site in Le Vernet. The following month, about 1,400 relatives of victims, senior politicians, rescue workers, and airline employees attended a memorial service at

Cologne Cathedral Cologne Cathedral (, , officially , English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia belonging to the Catholic Church. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archd ...

. The parents of Andreas Lubitz were invited to the service but did not attend. The remains of 15 of the 16 school children and their two teachers arrived in their home town of Haltern for burial two months after the crash. Residents held white roses as the hearses passed the children's school, where 18 trees—one for each victim—had been planted as a memorial. In Düsseldorf on the same day, the remains of 44 of the 72 German victims arrived for burial. Errors on the victims' death certificates had caused a delay. In September 2017, a sculpture called ''Sonnenkugel'' ("Sunsphere") was installed at the site of the crash. The sculpture consists of 149 gold-coloured aluminium plates which form a sphere around a crystal-shaped column. The column holds 149 wooden spheres, which in turn hold personal mementos provided by the victims' family members.

Second anniversary

The Lubitz family held a press conference on 24 March 2017, two years to the day after the crash. Lubitz's father said the family did not accept the official investigative findings that Andreas Lubitz deliberately caused the crash or that he had been depressed at the time. Aviation journalist Tim van Beveren published a report which asserted that Lubitz could have fallen unconscious, that the cockpit door lock had malfunctioned on previous flights, and that potentially dangerous turbulence had been reported in the area on the day of the crash. Van Beveren had been commissioned by the family and was present at the press conference. The timing of the press conference by Lubitz's father, on the anniversary of the crash, was criticised by families of the victims, who were holding their own remembrances on that day.

Tenth anniversary

On 24 March 2025, the 10th anniversary of the crash, memorial services were held in France, Germany, and Spain. To mark the 10th anniversary, German public broadcaster ARD released a four-part true-crime documentary in German entitled "Der Germanwings Crash".

In popular culture

The crash was dramatised in season 16 of the Canadian TV series ''

Mayday Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiz ...

'' in an episode entitled "Murder in the Skies". The episode aired on 24 January 2017.

Notes

References

External links

Official memorial website
– Lufthansa Group ** memorial site (also by Lufthansa Group) * �
PDF of the English translation of the final report
and th
original French version
(which the BEA notes on PDF p. 2/110 of the English PDF is the primary work of reference) * * {{Portal bar, Aviation, France, Germany, Spain 2015 disasters in France 2015 in Spain Accidents and incidents involving Germanwings (Deutsche Lufthansa AG) Accidents and incidents involving the Airbus A320 Airliner accidents and incidents involving deliberate crashes History of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Aviation accidents and incidents in 2015 Aviation accidents and incidents in France France–Germany relations France–Spain relations Germany–Spain relations History of the Alps Lufthansa March 2015 in France March 2015 in Spain March 2015 in Germany 2015 suicides Mental health in Germany Mental health in France 21st century in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Suicides in France