Germanwings plane crash: Pilot’s girlfriend ‘told pupils she was pregnant’

Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz’s girlfriend was pregnant with his child before last week’s air crash in France that killed all 150 people on board, a German newspaper is reporting.

Lubitz, 27, was living with the unnamed 26-year-old woman in his Düsseldorf apartment up until the crash last Tuesday, Germany’s Bild newspaper and Der Spiegel magazine reported.

[fwdevp preset_id=”8″ video_path=”rHfeIh_nrJs”]

She worked as a teacher at an unnamed comprehensive school in the state of North Rhine Westfalia and Bild said she had told her pupils that she was pregnant. Lubitz had also recently ordered two new cars for them.

The woman – given the pseudonym, Sabine L, by Bild to protect her identity – visited the crash site last week, discovering on the way there that Lubitz had deliberately crashed the plane, killing himself and 149 others.

Sabine was said to have met Lubitz when the two were school students doing holiday jobs at a hamburger restaurant. “Eventually they no longer kept their relationship a secret,” the former manager was quoted as saying.

It is thought that Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane because he was deeply depressed and was being treated for vision problems that could have ended his flying career. Some sources suggested he was suffering from a detached retina.

The reports came as a transcript of the last voice recordings was revealed yesterday, which reveals that Lubitz urged the pilot to go to the toilet, leaving him alone in the cockpit. Passengers can be heard screaming uncontrollably for minutes before the crash, according to details published by Bild am Sonntag.

Over the course of the transcript, Lubitz can be heard telling Captain Patrick Sondheimer that he is ready to take over “any time”.

As Capt Sondheimer orders Lubitz to prepare the plane for landing in Düsseldorf, Lubitz appears to give clues about what he is about to do, responding with “hopefully” and “let’s wait and see”. He then tells Capt Sondheimer: “You can go now”.

Two minutes later, the Captain says, “you can take over now” and the sound of a cockpit seat sliding backwards is followed by the clicking of the cockpit door.

Agencies/Canadajournal