Aussie newbie pilot lands plane after instructor blacks out

France24 – AFP, 2 September 2019

Sydney (AFP) - An Australian man venturing into the skies for a first flying lesson has been forced to make an "amazing" solo landing after his instructor blacked out mid-flight.

Max Sylvester's wife and three kids watched from the ground as air traffic control talked him through safely landing the Cessna two-seater at Perth's Jandakot airport on Saturday.

The 30-something had issued a panicked mayday call from an altitude of 1,900 metres (6,200 feet), after his instructor slumped onto his shoulder and could not be woken.

"Do you know how to operate the aeroplane," the air traffic controller in Perth asked urgently, according to a recording of their exchange.

"This is my first lesson," Sylvester responded, adding that he had never landed an aircraft before.

Realising the enormity of the task at hand, the tower responded: "The first thing that we are going to do is make sure that the wings stay level."

He was instructed to maintain altitude and to make a pass above the runway to get a sense of the terrain and become more at ease.

"You're doing a really great job," the operator reassures the trainee as someone more familiar with the aircraft was rushed to the tower.

"I know this is really stressful. But you're going to do an amazing job and we're going to help you get down to the ground, OK?"

Some twenty minutes later, the plane made a heart-stoppingly bumpy landing.

"You did it mate!" exclaimed the air traffic controller. "Well done. That's amazing!"

The instructor was taken to hospital in a stable condition and Sylvester received his first solo flight certificate from the instructor's employer, Air Australia International.

"This could have gone way, way bad," Air Australia International owner Chuck McElwee said, according to public broadcaster ABC.

"But everything worked out right, and it worked right, mostly because of the cooperation of the tower."

Myanmar plane in emergency touchdown as landing gear fails

Yahoo – AFP, May 12, 2019

All 89 people on board the Myanmar Airlines plane, including seven crew
members, were safe (AFP Photo/STR)

A Myanmar pilot saved the day after his aircraft's landing gear failed, safely putting the jet on the runway with no front wheels on Sunday, an official said.

The nail-biting touchdown -- in which no one was hurt -- was the second instance of a malfunctioning flight in less than a week within the country.

Myanmar Airlines flight UB-103 -- an Embraer-190 model -- touched the ground at around 9:00 am in Mandalay (0230 GMT), a city popular among foreign tourists. The plane carried 82 passengers and a crew of seven.

An unverified video circulated on social media showed a graceful landing before the plane's nose dipped gradually to the runway, and the craft slowly ground to a halt.

Ye Htut Aung, deputy director general of Myanmar's Civil Aviation Department, told AFP the pilot tried repeatedly to deploy the front landing gear -- first through its computer system, then manually.

"They tried hard twice by flying around twice and asked to check whether the nose wheel dropped or not," Ye Htut Aung said, calling it a "technical fault".

"So they had to land with the back wheels... The pilot could land it skillfully," he said. "There were no casualties."

Ye Htut Aung said engineers sent by Myanmar National Airlines would examine the aircraft, adding that all jets get a daily flight check.

For its part, Embraer said in a statement that it was "offering its full cooperation to the aviation authorities in order to aid in the investigation".

Passenger Soe Moe told AFP: "Smoke came out a little when we landed... All passengers are okay."

Sunday's incident came just four days after a Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane skidded off a runway while landing at Yangon airport in a storm, injuring 11 passengers.

Myanmar's monsoon season has caused problems for commercial and military flights in the past.

A military plane crashed into the Andaman Sea in 2017, killing all 122 people on board in one of the deadliest aviation accidents in the country's history. Authorities blamed bad weather.

And in 2015, an Air Bagan passenger plane veered off the runway amid bad weather and heavy rain. A passenger and a person on the ground were killed.

Boeing 737 MAX makes emergency landing during US transfer: FAA

Yahoo – AFP, March 26, 2019

Southwest Airlines cut its first-quarter sales forecast, due in part to the hit from
cancelled flights following the Boeing 737 MAX grounding (AFP Photo/Ralph Freso)

Washington (AFP) - A Boeing 737 MAX aircraft operated by Southwest Airlines made an emergency landing Tuesday after experiencing an engine problem as it was being ferried from Florida to California, the US Federal Aviation Agency said.

"The aircraft returned and landed safely in Orlando," the FAA said in a statement, adding that no passengers were on board the aircraft, which was being transferred to Victorville, California for storage.

"The FAA is investigating," added the agency, which grounded the Boeing 737 MAX on March 13 following two deadly accidents involving Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air but continues to allow the planes to be ferried from airport to airport.

Southwest said the plane experienced an engine problem "shortly after takeoff."

"The crew followed protocol and safely landed back at the airport" around 3:00 pm (1900 GMT), spokesman Chris Mainz said.

"The Boeing 737 MAX 8 will be moved to our Orlando maintenance facility for a review."

It was the latest setback for Boeing's flagship narrow-body plane following October's Lion Air crash and the Ethiopian Airlines accident earlier this month, which together killed 346 people.

The accidents, which shared similarities, led authorities across the world to ground the aircraft.

Boeing has since conducted test flights of its 737 MAX to evaluate a fix for the MCAS stall prevention system targeted as a potential cause for the deadly crashes, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The system has been criticized since it can malfunction and make it difficult for pilots to control the aircraft. Both of the recent crashes occurred moments after takeoff.

A Senate Commerce Committee panel will hold a hearing Wednesday to question FAA Acting Administration Daniel Elwell and Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel

The officials are expected to face questions from lawmakers on the FAA's certification of the 737 MAX and whether regulators have become too cozy with the company, and fast-tracked some approvals.

The session is expected to be followed by a second hearing at a later date with Boeing, airline pilots and other stakeholders, the committee said.

Ethiopian Airlines crash: What is the MCAS system on the Boeing 737 Max 8?

Yahoo – AFP, Chris Lefkow, March 17, 2019

The crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane has put the spotlight on an anti-stalling
system used on the 737 Max 8 aircraft (AFP Photo/Michael TEWELDE)

Washington (AFP) - Similarities between the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, confirmed by black box data, have focused attention on an anti-stalling system used in the new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft.

The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) is an automated safety feature on the 737 Max 8 designed to prevent the plane from entering into a stall, or losing lift.

Both the Lion Air jet, which crashed in October, killing 189 people, and the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft, which went down a week ago Sunday, leaving 157 people dead, were fitted with the system.

Both planes experienced similarly erratic steep climbs and descents and fluctuating airspeeds before crashing shortly after takeoff.

A malfunction of the system was implicated in the Lion Air accident in Indonesia.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said findings from the crash site and "newly refined satellite data" warranted "further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents."

The 737 Max 8 and 9 have been grounded worldwide since the Ethiopia crash, and on Friday industry sources said Boeing plans to upgrade the MCAS system in the "coming weeks."

MCAS was introduced by Boeing on the 737 Max 8 because its heavier, more fuel-efficient engines changed the aerodynamic qualities of the workhorse aircraft and can cause the plane's nose to pitch up in certain conditions during manual flight.

Angle of attack sensors on the aircraft tell the MCAS to automatically point the nose of the plane down if it is in danger of going into a stall.

This is done through horizontal stabilizers on the plane's tail which are activated by the aircraft's flight control computer.

According to Boeing, MCAS does not control the plane during normal flight but "improves the behavior of the airplane" during "non-normal" situations.

These could be steep turns or after takeoff when a plane is climbing with flaps up at speeds that are close to stall speed.

According to the flight data recorder, the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 struggled to control the aircraft as the automated MCAS system repeatedly pushed the plane's nose down following takeoff.

The pilots of the Ethiopian Airlines plane reported similar difficulty before the aircraft plunged into the ground shortly after takeoff.

Boeing was criticized

A preliminary report on the Lion Air Flight 610 accident blamed it in part on a faulty angle of attack sensor that triggered the MCAS system and automatically forced the plane's nose down.

Pilots flying the same Lion Air plane the previous day had managed to override the automated flight control system.

Boeing came in for some criticism after the Lion Air crash for allegedly failing to adequately inform 737 pilots about the functioning of MCAS or provide training about the system.

Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing issued a bulletin to airlines operating the 737 Max 8 advising pilots how to override the MCAS system.

The US aircraft manufacturer issued a statement on Monday saying it was too early to understand the cause of the Ethiopian Airlines accident.

Boeing also said it was working on software updates to the MCAS system which would be deployed across the 737 Max fleet.

It said procedures already exist to "safely handle the unlikely event of erroneous data coming from an angle of attack (AOA) sensor," the suspected cause of the Lion Air crash.

"The pilot will always be able to override the flight control law (MCAS) using electric trim or manual trim," the aircraft manufacturer said.

Boeing has described the Max series as its fastest-selling family of planes, with more than 5,000 orders placed to date from about 100 customers.

But not since the 1970s -- when the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 suffered successive fatal incidents -- has a new model been involved in two deadly accidents in such a short period.

Indonesia calls off the search for Lion Air crash victims

Yahoo – AFP, November 10, 2018

Rescuers have recovered body parts and pieces of the plane's engines,
wheels and seats from the sea (AFP Photo/Adek BERRY)

Indonesia on Saturday called off the search for passengers of a Lion Air plane, almost two weeks after the jetliner plunged into the Java Sea killing 189 people on board.

Some 196 bags containing body parts have been recovered from under the water with 79 victims identified and handed over to their families for burial.

"Since yesterday afternoon until today we have not found any more victims and therefore I declare the search and rescue operation is over," Muhammad Syaugi, head of the search and rescue agency, told reporters Saturday.

"We apologise to the public, especially the families of victims if during the operation we were not able to satisfy everybody," he added.

Rescuers have also retrieved parts of the plane's engines, wheels and seats from the sea. One diver died helping with search.

Lion Air has begun paying $102,058 compensation money for each passenger to the grieving families.

Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee has retrieved one of the black boxes -- the flight data recorder -- and is still hunting for the cockpit voice recorder, which recorded the last conversation between the pilot and co-pilot before the crash.

The doomed jet was a Boeing 737-Max 8, one of the world's newest and most advanced commercial passenger planes, and there is still no answer as to what caused the crash.

The government has ordered a check on all Boeing 737-Max 8 fleets and conducted a special audit on Lion Air management.

The transportation ministry has also removed several executives and technical staff from the airline to help with the accident investigation.

The Lion Air plane plunged into the Java Sea on October 29 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang city.

All 189 people on board were killed and the data from the flight recorder data has so far revealed the plane's air speed indicator had not been working properly on its last four journeys, including on the fatal flight.

Following the fatal crash, Boeing issued a special bulletin on how to deal with the erroneous Angle of Attack sensor alert in 737-8 and -9 airplanes.

Air pressure mix-up causes mass bleeding on Indian flight

Yahoo – AFP, 20 September 2018

The Jet Airways flight to Jaipur had to turn back as the alarming symptoms became
apparent, the airline said

A cockpit mix-up left more than 30 passengers on an Indian plane bleeding from their ears and noses Thursday after the crew reportedly forgot to flick a switch regulating cabin air pressure.

The Jet Airways flight to Jaipur had to turn back due to loss in cabin pressure, the airline said, with travellers describing "panic" on board.

The plane carrying 166 passengers landed back in Mumbai and those affected were given medical attention while alternative flights were arranged, Jet Airways said.

The flight crew "has been taken off scheduled duties pending investigation", the company said in a statement.

People on board posted photos and videos of the calamity online, with one purported passenger, Darshak Hathi, uploading footage on Twitter showing travellers using oxygen masks.

"Panic situation due to technical fault in @jetairways 9W 0697 going from Mumbai to Jaipur," he tweeted, adding that all passengers were safe.

Another traveller said the pilot did not make any announcement other than that the flight would turn back to Mumbai.

"I was in the business class and the oxygen mask came down suddenly. One passenger came running from the back asking everyone to put on the masks," he told the NDTV news network.

"All the passengers were panicking, those sitting at the back and who were unable to wear the masks started bleeding from their mouths and noses."

An official with India's national aviation regulator told the Press Trust of India the crew "forgot to select (the) bleed switch" to maintain the aircraft's cabin pressure.

Five travellers who suffered bleeding and were rushed to a Mumbai hospital were suffering from mild deafness that would take some 10 days to recover, a doctor told reporters.

The incident is the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents for the airline, which like other Indian carriers has been suffering financially.

In January, two Jet Airways pilots were grounded for getting into a brawl and storming out of the cockpit briefly during a New Year's Day flight from London to Mumbai.

In view of the latest scare, India's Civil Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu has ordered a safety audit of all airlines and airports, asking the report to be submitted within 30 days.

Turkish passenger plane skids off runway onto seaside cliff

Yahoo – AFP, 14 January 2018

The Pegasus Airlines flight had taken off smoothly from the capital Ankara bound
for Trabzon, where the accident occurred as the plane was landing late Saturday

A plane with 168 people aboard skidded off a runway onto a seaside cliff after landing at an airport in northern Turkey at the weekend, but no one was injured in what one passenger called a "miracle".

The Pegasus Airlines flight had taken off smoothly from the capital Ankara bound for Trabzon, where the accident occurred as the plane was landing late Saturday.

Dramatic images from CNN Turk broadcaster showed the plane lying on the cliffside, its nose just metres (feet) from the waters of the Black Sea and its wheels stuck in mud.

"There was panic, people shouting, screaming," one of the passengers, Fatma Gordu, told state-run Anadolu news agency.

"When they told us to leave from the rear exit, everyone tried to push ahead of everyone else. It was a terrible situation."

She said they could smell fuel and feared that a fire would break out. "That is why we were scared," she said, adding that there were pregnant women and children on board.

Passenger Yuksel Gordu said it was a "miracle" they were saved. "We could have burned, it could have exploded, we could have fallen into the sea... Every time I think about it, I feel I might go crazy," she said.

Images from the Dogan news agency showed smoke emanating from the trapped plane and an engine that appeared to have fallen into the water.

According to the agency, the plane was 25 metres (80 feet) away from the sea.

Pegasus Airlines confirmed in a statement Sunday there were no injuries among the 162 passengers, two pilots and four flight attendants.

Pegasus Airlines confirmed in a statement Sunday there were no injuries 

among the 162 passengers, two pilots and four flight attendants

The cause of the incident was unknown but an investigation is under way, the Trabzon governor's office said. A crisis centre for the incident was set up at the airport.

"The plane will be removed while all measures have been taken for other work and procedures. These will be carried out step-by-step," Trabzon governor Yucel Yavuz told Anadolu.

He added that a small number of people asked to go to hospital but did not give further detail.

The Trabzon public prosecutor has launched a separate criminal probe. Dogan agency said the prosecutor would seek statements from the six crew onboard.

The airport was temporarily shut before reopening early Sunday, while an operation to remove the plane continued.

Professor Atakan Aksoy from Karadeniz Technical University's civil engineering department said that the construction of a second runway needed to be "accelerated".

"These kinds of accidents can happen due to the narrow ground surface in the northern part of the airport and because it is near a cliff," he told Dogan agency.

Transport Ministry Orders Firm Action Against 'Drunk' Citilink Pilot

Jakarta Globe, Lona Olavia, Anselmus Bata & Eko Prasetyo, December 30, 2016

The Ministry of Transportation has ordered firm action against the Citilink pilot
who allegedly arrived for work while drunk at Juanda International Airport in
Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday (28/12). (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

Jakarta. The Ministry of Transportation has ordered firm action against the Citilink pilot who allegedly arrived for work while drunk at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday (28/12). This follows after a video of the incident went viral on social media.

The pilot was caught on CCTV camera while passengers on Citilink Flight QC 800 from Surabaya to Jakarta demanded that he should be replaced.

Bambang S. Ervan, a spokesperson for the ministry's Directorate General of Air Transportation , said the pilot, who has since been grounded, will be subjected to a thorough health check.

The ministry also instructed the airline management to take firm action against the pilot.

"Harsh sanctions will be imposed on the pilot if he violated health examination requirements and systematic procedures," Bambang said in Jakarta on Thursday evening.

Air transportation director general Suprasetyo earlier ordered the pilot to undergo another health examination despite the fact that the result of the initial test at the airport clinic was negative for the presence of drugs or alcohol.

"The pilot named Tekad Purna should undergo another medical checkup at the flight health office today," Suprasetyo said in a written statement on Wednesday.

Suprasetyo reiterated the government's zero-tolerance policy related to flight safety and security, saying all potential issues should be prevented as early as possible.

However, he also pointed out that the good name of the pilot should be restored if the result of the second health check is negative.

Chronology Report

The management of Citilink has meanwhile submitted a chronology report to the air transportation agency detailing the sequence of events. It is as follows:

05.09 a.m.: Pilot arrives in the flops and directly enters the aircraft at stand 5A during the boarding process. The pilot enters the cockpit and makes an announcement over the aircraft's public address system in an unclear voice. This results in complaints from passengers, who demand that the pilot must be replaced.

05.30 a.m.: All passengers disembark from the aircraft. Citilink decides to replace the pilot with Capt. Wahana Agus. All passengers board the plane except nine, who had canceled their flights.

06.20 a.m.: Flight QC 800 is pushed back to commence the flight to Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in Jakarta.

06.35 a.m.: Capt. Tekad is examined in the Graha Angkasa Pura I clinic by doctor Putu, with a negative result for drugs and alcohol.

The airline announced that Capt. Tekad Purna has been grounded until further notice. Citilink chief executive Abert Burhan also said the airline management is cooperating with the Transportation Ministry on further investigations.

"Citilink does not tolerate any actions from pilots that violate flight procedures and regulations and we are ready to impose further sanctions, including a possible dismissal," Albert said on Thursday.

The results of the second health examination on the pilot will be available next week.

Passengers flee Emirates jet after Dubai crash-landing

Yahoo – AFP, Ali Khalil with Karim Abou Merhi, August 3, 2016

The Emirates airliner burst into flames following the crash-landing at Dubai
airport on August 3, 2016 (AFP Photo/Ahmed Ramzan)

Dubai (AFP) - Hundreds of passengers fled an Emirates airliner that crash-landed and caught fire in Dubai Wednesday, resulting in the death of a firefighter and a four-hour shutdown of the busy airport but no other fatalities.

The exact circumstances of the accident involving a Boeing 777 flying from India with 300 people on board were not immediately clear.

Footage on social media showed thick black smoke billowing from the aircraft on the ground.

Emirates chief executive officer Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum spoke of an "operational incident" that happened on landing and ruled out any "security issue".

The fire erupted on board the aircraft after the incident, he said, adding that the cause was not yet clear.

Emirates said that all passengers and crew on board flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai were accounted for and safe.

Sheikh Ahmed later told reporters later that 13 people on board were hospitalised, most of them for minor injuries.

The director general of the General Civil Aviation Authority, Saif al-Suwaidi, said in a statement that "one of the firefighters lost his life while saving the lives of the others."

Investigators had been sent to work with Emirates and the Dubai airport authorities, he said.

Emirates said that there were 282 passengers and 18 crew members on board, including 226 Indians, 24 Britons and 11 Emirati nationals.

The Emirates Boeing 777 was carrying 282 passengers and 18 crew 

members (AFP Photo/Warwan Naamani)

Sheikh Ahmed said that the pilot was an Emirati with more than 7,000 hours of flight time and the aircraft had "all necessary inspection checks" before take-off.

Footage on social media showed thick black smoke coming out of the centre of the plane while the fuselage appeared to be lying on the runway with escape slides opened.

'I ran without my shoes'

Shaji Kochikutty, who was on board the plane with his wife and three daughters, recounted surviving the "near disaster."

"We are grateful to be alive. What more can we ask for?" the Dubai-based businessman said, speaking to weekly newspaper XPRESS.

After the plane caught fire on landing, airline staff "opened all emergency exits and guided us out," Kochikutty said.

"I first sent my three daughters. My wife went next but hurt her knee while jumping out. I bruised my feet as I ran without my shoes. We were promptly given first aid and we are all fine now," he said.

The accident comes almost four months after a plane belonging to Dubai's other carrier, flydubai, crashed and burst into flames as it was landing in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, killing all 61 people onboard.

On July 26, an Emirates Boeing 777-300 aircraft heading to the Maldives made an emergency landing in Mumbai because of a "technical fault".

Airport authorities halted all operations at Dubai International Airport for around four hours Wednesday, causing delays and diversions.

Anxious passengers and relatives wait for news at Thiruvananthapuram 

airport after hearing that Emirates flight EK521 had crash-landed at Dubai

 airport on August 3, 2016 (AFP Photo)

Arriving planes were diverted to other airports in the UAE, Oman, and Bahrain, Emirates said.

Despite later resuming operations, Dubai International said its capacity was still restricted and it was operating with one runway.

It is the world's largest air hub in terms of international passengers, and is the base for Emirates, from where it serves more than 153 destinations.

Dubai opened a smaller second airport, Al-Maktoum International, in 2013.

Emirates, Qatar Airways and Abu Dhabi's Etihad have seized a significant portion of transcontinental travel, capitalising on the geographic locations of their Gulf hubs.

Emirates is the largest single operator of the Boeing 777, as well as the Airbus A380 superjumbo, and expanded its fleet to 250 aircraft last year.

Accidents involving drones on the rise

DutchNews.nl, June 23, 2015

A burning drone on a country road

Transport ministry inspectors received 27 reports of accidents involving small unmanned aircraft, or drones, last year, according to a new report. 

In 2013 there were 15 accidents and in 2012 just eight, the ministry says. Most of the incidents were reported by manned aircraft and professional drone users. 

The true figure is likely to be far higher because not all incidents are reported, the NRC points out. 

In total, 11 incidents last year involved a crash landing close to people or buildings 

Rules

New rules governing the use of drones come into effect later this year. A mini drone will not be allowed to fly higher than 50 metres or 100 metres from the controller. 

Drones will also have to keep a distance of 50 metres from people, buildings and other unmanned aircraft. Nor can drones be flown within five kilometres of airports.

Garuda Stowaway Released After Flight in Landing Gear

Jakarta Globe, Apr 15, 2015

Jakarta. Mario Steven Ambarita, 22, who crawled into the wheel well of a Jakarta-bound Garuda Indonesia flight from Sumatra last week has been released and will not face  jail.

“Mario was released on Tuesday around 11 p.m. at Sultan Syarif Kasim II airport in Pekanbaru,” Marangin Parlindungan Sinaga, who represents Mario, told the state-run Antara news agency in Pekanbaru on Wednesday.

Officials had decided the offense did not warrant further police time, Maringin said.

“Mario would be in jail if the penalty was going to be more than five years,” he said.

Mario is from Rokan Hilir district in Riau. On April 8, he slipped past airport security and climbed aboard the Boeing 737-800 before it departed from the province, surviving freezing temperatures as the plane flew some 34,000 feet above the earth surface.

Mario was found dazed and staggering by Soekarno-Hatta staff and was directly assessed at the airport clinic. He was reported to be running out of oxygen with blood coming from his ears and frostbitten extremities.

Mario told police he had made the perilous journey to see President Joko Widodo in Jakarta, police said.

The general manager of Sultan Syarif Kasim II airport Slamet Samiadji was fired over the incident.

Surviving the freezing temperature and very limited oxygen in the well of a commercial aircraft’s landing gear is unlikely, but not impossible. A 15-year-old American boy survived for five hours in a wheel well on a flight from California to Hawaii.

The security lapse at Pekanbaru airport is the latest evidence that Indonesia has not have sufficient control to allay safety fears in its fast-growing aviation sector.

Flights run by low-cost carrier Lion Air are routinely late or canceled during busy times. After an Indonesia AirAsia flight crashed into the Java Sea in December, killing all on board, the Indonesian government revealed the airline did not have the correct paperwork to fly from Surabaya to Singapore.

Pilot locked out of cockpit before mystery French Alps crash

Yahoo – AFP, Marc Burleigh and Delphine Touitou in Paris, 26 March 2015

A French Gendarmeri helicopter flies over an air base in Seyne-les-Alpes on 

March 26, 2015 as the search operation following the Germanwings plane crash

resumes (AFP Photo/Boris Horvat)

Seyne-les-Alpes (France) (AFP) - One of the pilots on the doomed Germanwings flight was locked out of the cockpit shortly before the plane crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, a source told AFP, raising new questions for investigators trying to make sense of the tragedy.

The news came as families and friends of victims began arriving in France to travel to the remote mountainous crash site area, where locals have opened their doors in a show of solidarity with the grieving relatives.

Cockpit recordings from one of the plane's black boxes indicated that a seat was pushed back, then the door opened and closed. Later, knocking is heard, said the source close to the probe, adding "there was no more conversation from that point until the crash".

Buses carrying family members of the 

victims of the Germanwings plane crash

 are escorted by police in Marignane on

 March 26, 2015 before heading to the

 area of the crash in the Alps (AFP 

Photo/Franck Pennant)

The source, who asked not to be identified, said an alarm indicating proximity to the ground could be heard before the moment of impact.

All 150 people on board flight 4U 9525, including two babies and 16 German school exchange pupils, died when the Airbus A320 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf smashed into the mountains after an eight-minute descent.

There was no distress signal from the plane and the crew failed to respond to ground control's desperate attempts to make contact.

The cockpit recording showed the pilots speaking normally in German at the start of the flight, the source said, adding that it could not be determined if it was the captain or the first officer who left the cockpit. A second black box, which records flight data, has not yet been recovered.

The New York Times cited a senior military official involved in the investigation as saying the cockpit black box recording indicated one pilot tried unsuccessfully to bash his way back in to the cockpit.

"The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer," the investigator told the newspaper. "And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer."

He continued: "You can hear he is trying to smash the door down."

'Unconscious or dead'

Germanwings told AFP: "Only a pilot inside the cockpit can unlock the door."

Employees of the German airline Lufthansa

 and subsidiary Germanwings mourn the 

victims of the Germanwings plane crash 

at Duesseldorf airport on March 26, 

2015 (AFP Photo/Patrik Stollarz)

But its spokesperson refused to either confirm or deny "for security reasons" whether there was any way to open the door from outside, perhaps with an access code.

They confirmed the existence of a video surveillance system that allows the pilot to see who is trying to enter the cockpit.

Germanwings' parent company Lufthansa said the co-pilot had been working for them since September 2013 and had 630 hours of flight experience. The pilot had more than 10 years experience and 6,000 hours flying time.

However, neither pilot has been identified yet.

Authorities say the plane was flying right until the moment of impact and that there was no mid-air explosion.

The French interior minister has said that terrorism is not considered likely. However, aviation experts say the mystery remains wide open.

"If the pilots did not stop the airplane from flying into the mountains, it is because they were unconscious or dead, or they had decided to die, or they were forced to die," one expert told AFP.

Debris from the Germanwings Airbus A320
is seen strewn over the crash site in the
 French Alps above the southeastern
 town of Seyne-les-Alps (AFP Photo)

Earlier, Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr called the incident "inexplicable".

"The plane was in perfect condition and the two pilots were experienced," he said.

The prosecutor for the southern city of Marseille, who is leading the judicial enquiry, was due to brief reporters at 12:30 pm (1130 GMT).

Grieving families gather

Meanwhile, two planes arrived in southern France on Thursday from Barcelona and Duesseldorf with families and friends of victims.

They were due to meet the prosecutor before heading by bus to the hamlet close to the crash site.

Tents were set up for them to give DNA samples to start the process of identifying the bodies of loved ones, at least 51 of whom were Spaniards and at least 72 Germans.

The remains of victims, found scattered across the scree-covered slopes, were being taken by helicopter to nearby Seyne-les-Alpes, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

A mountain guide who got near the crash site said he was unable to make out recognisable body parts.

A member of the French Red Cross waits

 to greet the families of victims of the 

Germanwings Airbus A320 at a support 

centre set up in Digne-les-Bains on March

25, 2015 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)

"It's incredible. An Airbus is enormous. When you arrive and there's nothing there... it's very shocking," said the guide, who did not wish to be identified.

The crash site, which is situated at about 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) altitude, is accessible only by helicopter or an arduous hike on foot.

French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew over the site to see the devastation for themselves Wednesday. Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy also visited a crisis centre near the scene.

It was the deadliest air crash on the French mainland since 1974 when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed, killing 346 people.

Lufthansa said the aircraft was carrying citizens of 18 countries. Three Americans and three Britons were confirmed among the victims.

Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Holland, Israel, Japan, Mexico and Morocco also had nationals on board, according to officials.

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