1 pilot locked out of cockpit before German airline crash, Read full story

Audio from the mangled voice recorder of Germanwings Flight 9525 reveals a bizarre struggle on board: One of the pilots was locked out of the cockpit and was trying to get inside when the plane crashed, according to media reports. Read more......

Audio from the mangled voice recorder of Germanwings Flight 9525 reveals a bizarre struggle on board: One of the pilots was locked out of the cockpit and was trying to get inside when the plane crashed, according to media reports.

"You can hear he is trying to smash the door down," a senior military official involved in the investigation told The New York Times.

"We don't know yet the reason why one of the guys went out. But what is sure is that at the very end of the flight, the other pilot is alone and does not open the door."

Agence France-Presse also reported a pilot was locked out, citing a source close to the investigation.

Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, said it was looking into the claim.

"We have no information from the bodies investigating the incident that would corroborate the report in the New York Times," spokesman Boris Ogursky said. "We will not participate in speculation, but we will follow up on the matter."

The Times' report is a "terribly shocking revelation," CNN aviation analyst Peter Goelz said. But he and other experts cautioned that it's still unclear what could have been going on inside the cockpit.

An array of theories


Possibilities range from a medical emergency to something more nefarious, like a suicide mission, CNN aviation analysts said.

Officials previously said they hadn't ruled out terrorism, but it seems unlikely.

French authorities have disclosed few details about what the recording actually contained.

"It is too early to draw conclusions to what happened," said Remi Jouty, head of the BEA, the French aviation investigative arm leading the probe. "There is going to be detailed work performed on that audio file to understand and interpret the sounds and the voices that can be heard."

Finding the plane's second black box will also be critical to understanding the mystery of what went on inside the jet.

That box, the flight data recorder, hasn't been found yet, but Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said Wednesday that there's a high probability it will be.