Germanwings crash - Scary element

THE picture of a young man, believed to be 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz, sitting calmly beside San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is a classic image of the proverbial ‘boy next door’.

Yet, in reality he was a mass murderer, according to the lead investigator at the search site in the French Alps where he crashed an Airbus killing all on board.

The explanation for the mystery crash, gleaned from the black box recorder, is that Lubitz “voluntarily” initiated the descent of the plane and refused to open the door to the pilot who was outside the cockpit.

In other words it was an act of suicide by the co-pilot who was alone at the controls and seemed to “show a desire to want to destroy the plane”.

In theory this could also explain the disappearance of the Malaysian airline plane with all passengers and crew on board.

If Lubitz was so deranged as to cause the latest disaster we may never know why. But, like it or not, this chilling scenario has introduced a new and frightening element to air travel.