Germanwings plane crash: Mobile phone video 'found' capturing terror aboard Alps flight

Forensic experts of the French gendarmerie looking for the black box or clues on the site of the March 24 crash of a Germanwings Airbus A320 in which all 150 people on board were killed.

01 APRIL 2015
Mobile phone footage said to have been filmed by a passenger on the fated Germanwings flight has been recovered from the crash site and viewed by two newspapers, it has been claimed.

The German daily Bild and French magazine Paris Match said their reporters were shown a video allegedly taken by someone inside the cabin. "You can hear cries of 'My God' in several languages," Paris Match reported.

It said the sound of the pilot trying to open the cockpit door with a heavy object was also audible and that the screaming intensified. "Towards the end, after a heavy shake, stronger than the others, the screaming intensifies. Then nothing."

Bild said that "even though the scene on board is chaotic and completely shaky, and no individual person can be identified, the accuracy of the video is beyond question".

Neither publication had last night published the video which was said to be on a memory chip found among the wreckage by a source close to an investigation. Officials have denied that any such footage has been recovered.

The reports emerged after German airline Lufthansa yesterday revealed Andreas Lubitz informed his flight school in 2009 that he had had a "serious depressive episode", as French air accident investigators said they will recommend changes to psychological examinations for all airline pilots following last week's disaster in the Alps.

Lufthansa says the note was found in emails that Lubitz sent to the Lufthansa flight school when he resumed his training after an interruption. The airline said it has provided the documents to prosecutors.

The company had earlier said it was not aware of anything that could have driven Lubitz to deliberately crash the Airbus A320.

The report from France's air accident investigation bureau, the BEA, will also recommend changes in security procedures to make it impossible for pilots to lock their colleagues out of the cockpit - as Lubitz did before flying the Germanwings aircraft into a mountain.

The BEA said yesterday that its report would cover "criteria and procedures to identify specific psychological profiles" among pilots. It will also look at "the logic of locking systems for cockpit doors and procedures for entering and leaving the cockpit".
Children removed from murder scene

Gibraltar: The bodies of two children have been removed from a property where they were found dead along with a couple, police have said.

A 31-year-old British man, a Spanish woman (37), a four-year-old girl and a six-week-old baby girl were discovered with wounds in the British Overseas Territory on Monday morning.

It is believed they were all members of the same family.

After an “extensive investigation” by crime scene officers, the bodies of the two children were removed, Royal Gibraltar Police have said. The bodies of the two adults remain at the scene.

The Royal Gibraltar Police said it was not currently in a position to release the identities of those who died.

The British man involved was originally from Liverpool, according to reports.

It is believed the four-year-old girl was believed to be the woman’s daughter from a previous relationship, while the baby had been born in Spain.

The family are thought to have been in Gibraltar since late last week after arriving from Spain.
Death sentence for students’ killer

Malaysia: A fishmonger has been sentenced to death for murdering two “exceptional young” British medical students who had been working in a hospital.

Newcastle University students Aidan Brunger, from Kent, and Neil Dalton, from Ambergate in Derbyshire, were killed in the unprovoked attack in Sarawak on the island of Borneo in August last year.

The country’s high court heard during the trial that before killing the two men Zulkipli Abdullah (23) had said he wanted to “test his strength” against bigger and taller foreigners.

The prosecutor also said that after he stabbed the pair, he sniffed the blood on his hands and claimed it smelled nice.

Zulkipli had denied stabbing them but the court ruled that his defence was merely an afterthought, with the attack outside a cafe in the early hours being entirely unprovoked.

The victims, who were both 22, had been working at a hospital in Kuching — an area popular with backpackers.

Following the verdict, their parents put out a joint statement paying tribute to their sons and spoke of the devastation they have felt since their deaths.
British cruise tourist died from gunshots, inquest is told

Tunisia: A British tourist killed in a terror attack in Tunisia died of gunshot wounds to her abdomen and pelvis, a coroner has heard.

Mother-of-two Sally Adey, of Caynton, Shropshire, died in the shooting at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis on March 18.

She had been on a Mediterranean cruise with her 52-year-old husband Robert.

Coroner’s officer Julie Hartridge said a post-mortem examination had established provisional cause of death as “consistent with gunshot wounds to the abdomen and pelvis”. More than 20 people were killed in the attack, including 17 cruise ship tourists.

The hearing was adjourned until July 2.
Anne Frank ‘died earlier than previously believed’

Netherlands: New research by the Anne Frank House museum shows that the famed Second World War diarist is likely to have died earlier than previously thought.

The conclusion was published yesterday, on the 70th anniversary of the official date of the deaths of 15-year-old Anne and her sister Margot (19).

But researchers Erika Prins and Gertjan Broek say that the pair probably died of typhus in February 1945. Anne’s diary about her life in hiding has made her a symbol for Holocaust victims.
Family arrested over plan to become jihadi fighters

Spain: Police have arrested four members of a family, including two children, who were allegedly about to travel to Syria to become jihadi fighters, the Interior Ministry said.

It said a couple and two boys, both under 16, were arrested in the city of Badalona, near Barcelona.

The boys were suspected of planning to travel to Syria yesterday, via Morocco and Turkey.

The ministry said authorities believe another son of the couple joined the Islamic State group in Syria and died last year.