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SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) — What could have prompted the co-pilot of a German jetliner to lock the pilot out of the cockpit, and then fly the plane into a mountain? Investigators in France are trying to figure that out. A prosecutor says they're focusing on the "personal, family and professional" life of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz. He says it's clear from the cockpit voice recorder that his intention was to "destroy this plane."
SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) — The passengers aboard the doomed Germanwings flight may not have realized what was happening until the final moments before the plane crashed. A prosecutor says that's when the cries of terror from the passengers can be heard on the cockpit voice recorder. Until then, he says, there's only the sound of the captain's frantic pounding on the cockpit door, as he tried to get back inside. Officials say the co-pilot had deliberately locked him out.
UNDATED (AP) — It's already the policy in the United States -- there must be at least two crew members in the cockpit at all times. And now, that policy is being put into effect in other countries, after investigators concluded that a co-pilot, alone in the cockpit, deliberately brought down a German jetliner in the French Alps this week, killing all 150 people on board. Air Canada is going to require two people in the cockpit. So is a Norwegian airline that is Europe's third-biggest low-cost flyer. Some safety experts say there may be a need for a third pilot in cockpits, so that there's never a situation in which a pilot is alone.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (boh BURG'-dahl) says he tried about a dozen times to escape from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan, but that it only brought harsher treatment. In a note that his lawyer released today, Bergdahl says he was tortured repeatedly in the five years he was held by the Taliban. The lawyer had earlier shared the note with the Army, in hopes of avoiding a court-martial for Bergdahl -- but the Army went ahead and filed charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
LINDEN, N.J. (AP) — It turns out that the off-duty New Jersey police officer who was behind the wheel of a car that crashed while heading the wrong way on a New York highway last week has had two DUI arrests in the last four years. Police aren't saying why Pedro Abad remained on the force, or what punishment he may have faced. He and a second officer were critically injured in the crash, which killed a third officer and a civilian.
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