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Germanwings Flight 9525 Crash

Timeline: Germanwings Flight 9525 crashes into Alps

Compiled by Katharine Lackey
USA TODAY
Rescue workers look over debris from the Germanwings jet at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on March 26.

Germanwings Flight 9525, en route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, crashed into the Alps on Tuesday with 150 people on board.

Here's a timeline of events as they unfolded:

TUESDAY, MARCH 24

• 10:01 a.m. local time: Germanwings Flight 9525 takes off from Barcelona, about 20 minutes behind schedule.

10:27 a.m.: Jet reaches cruising altitude of 38,000 feet.

10:31 a.m.: Jet begins to descend at a rate of more than 3,000 feet per minute.

10:38 a.m.: Airliner is at 11,400 feet, the last data point on plane-tracking website FlightAware.com.

10:40 a.m.: Last radar position of the jet is registered at 6,175, only slightly higher than peaks of the Alps. Air-traffic controllers lose contact with Airbus A320. Controllers issue distress signal. Jet never issues such a signal.

A man looks at a monitor showing a map released on the webpage flightradar24 with the exact point where the radar signal of the Airbus A320 aircraft went missing.

Aroundnoon: Reports of a plane crashing in southern France surface. Debris from crash is located at 6,000 feet near Digne-les-Bain in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region, about 65 miles north of Nice. Accident site is spread across 5 acres and difficult to reach.

The Cockpit Voice Recorder  of the Germanwings Airbus A320.

• One of jet's two black box recorders is recovered.

• "The site is a picture of horror,'' German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says after viewing crash scene from the air. French officials say all onboard airliner are presumed dead.

Sixteen schoolchildren and two teachers from Joseph-König school in Haltern am See, near Düsseldorf, confirmed to have perished in crash. They were returning from exchange program in Spain. Two infants and opera singer also on board.

Debris from the Germanwings Airbus A320 at the crash site in the French Alps.

• Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann says pilot had more than 10 years of flying experience and jet was inspected fully last summer and checked over Monday. The airline cancels most of Tuesday's remaining flights from Düsseldorf and some other airports, German broadcaster Ard reports.

• President Obama calls crash "particularly heartbreaking because it apparently includes the loss of so many children.''

• Crash so distresses Germanwings crews that many do not show up for work, forcing mass cancellations, RT news organization reports.

• White House issues statement saying no link to terrorism has been found.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015

Conflicting reports, including one from French President Francois Hollande, emerge that at least parts of second recorder — which contains electronic data — had been found. Remi Jouty, director of France's aviation investigative agency, says it is still missing. He says authorities have been able to extract critical audio from one badly damaged box.

Victims' nationalities released. They include 72 Germans and 35 Spaniards. There were two victims each from Australia, Argentina, Iran and Venezuela. One each came from Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel. Winkelmann says list is not complete and nationality of some victims is unclear because of dual citizenship.

Two Americans onboard jet identified as Yvonne Selke, a contract worker for Booz Allen Hamilton for nearly 23 years, and her daughter, Emily Selke, a 2013 graduate of Drexel University. They were from Nokesville, Va. State Department confirms third American was onboard but doesn't identify victim.

Pupils gather in Haltern, Germany, March 25 at the Joseph-Konig High School to pay tribute to 16 students and two teachers from the school who were on Germanwings Flight 9525.

Classes canceled at Joseph-König school. Students encouraged to come to school to mourn with fellow classmates and talk with counselors. Dozens gather to lay red and white flowers in schoolyard and light candles bearing names of those who died. "Yesterday we were many, now we are alone," reads one sign painted with 16 white crosses.

The CEO of Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, issues statement: "We still cannot understand what happened yesterday," Carsten Spohr says. "Lufthansa has never in its history lost an aircraft in cruise flight. We cannot understand how an airliner that was in perfect technical condition, with two experienced Lufthansa pilots, was involved in such a terrible accident."

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, says there is "no concrete evidence that third parties were involved in the causes of the crash," Reuters reports.

Search-and-rescue workers are transported to the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320.

French President Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy fly by helicopter to operations base in village of Seyne-les-Alpes near crash site to pay respects to victims and greet search teams.

The New York Times reports evidence collected from cockpit voice recorder indicates one pilot left cockpit before jet began its descent and was unable to get back in.

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says co-pilotAndreas Lubitz, 27,deliberately worked to destroy jet while passengers shrieked in terror and pilot pounded on cockpit door. Information was obtained from the cockpit voice recorder. Lubitz said nothing during descent but could be heard breathing until crash, Robin says at news conference in Cologne.

A picture circulating on the Internet and social networks purportedly shows Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in California.

Robin says Lubitz, a German citizen, was not on any terrorist watch list and he stops short of calling the intentional downing of the plane a suicide mission. He refuses to divulge any information about Lubitz's religion or ethnic background.

Shortly after Robin's conference, Lufthansa tweets,"We are shaken by the upsetting statements of the French authorities. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the families and friends of the victims."

• Lufthansa CEO Spohr says Lubitz "passed all medical tests, he passed all aviation tests, he passed all checks. He was 100% able to fly without any limitations, without any reservations. His accomplishments were excellent. Nothing was noticed that wasn't proper." He says he has no information about what could have caused co-pilot to crash airliner.

• Spohr says Lubitz began training in Bremen, Germany, in 2008 and later in Arizona. He joined Germanwings in September 2013 and had flown 630 hours before Tuesday's crash.

• Spohr says there was a brief interruption in Lubitz's training in 2009, but he had completed qualifications for job. Such a break is not unusual, but the company will look into what happened during that time, Spohr says. Friends of Lubitz tell German magazine Der Spiegel he took time off for "depression" and burnout."

• Peter Ruecker, a member of the LSC Westerwald e.V glider club, where Lubitz learned to fly, tells Associated Press he showed no signs of depression in the fall when he renewed his glider pilot's license. "He was happy he had the job with Germanwings, and he was doing well," Ruecker says. "He gave off a good feeling."

• The German newspaper Bild reports Lubitz was from Montabaur in western Germany, where he often lived with his parents. He had an apartment in Düsseldorf. Police raid two locations, German newspaper Westdeutsche Zeitung reports.

A police officer stands in front of an apartment building Thursday where the co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings jet may have lived  in Dusseldorf, Germany.

• A deleted Facebook page that appears to be Lubitz's shows smiling man posing in front of Golden Gate Bridge in California. Page was wiped sometime in the past two days, according to Associated Press. Page listed his interests, including German electronica band Schiller, French superstar DJ David Guetta, his local Burger King, 10-pin bowling, aviation humor and a technical website about the A320 model of aircraft he flew.

• Multiple media outlets identify pilot as Patrick Sonderheimer. Lufthansa said he had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and had been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor.

• German, French and Spanish authorities continue investigating crash. FBI issues statement saying it has offered assistance to French officials leading investigation.

• A moment of silence is held Thursday at Joseph-König school.

• Lufthansa offers special flights from Barcelona and Düsseldorf to Marseille, so those close to victims can be near scene of search-and-recovery efforts in the French Alps.

• Two low-cost European carriers — easyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle — announce they would change their rules to ensure two crew members are in the cockpit at all times. The United Kingdom's Civil Aviation Authority says it has asked all U.K. carriers to review procedures.

• An analysis by aviation website FlightRadar24.com finds the transponder data from the jet shows the autopilot was reprogrammed in the cockpit to change the plane's altitude from 38,000 feet to about 100 feet.

Rescue workers check debris at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France.

FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015

• German prosecutors say Lubitz concealed an illness from his employers and tore up a doctor's note that called for him to go on medical leave on the day of the tragedy. Police found the medical certificate and other documents during a search Thursday at his Düsseldorf home. Prosecutors say no suicide note or claim of responsibility was found.

• Unconfirmed German media reports suggest that Lubitz may have been suffering from depression.

The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 Andreas Lubitz takes part in the Airport Hamburg 10-mile run on Sept. 13, 2009, in Hamburg.

• Winkelmann releases a statement saying that the airline has begun setting up a family assistance center in Marseille, France, and that briefings with family members will start there on Saturday.

• Lufthansa says it will now require two authorized crew members in the cockpit of its flights at all times. The change will cover all the carriers in the Lufthansa Group, which includes Germanwings, Austrian Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines.

SATURDAY, March 28, 2015

• Lubitz's former girlfriend tells German newspaper Bild that he once vowed to "do something" that would make people remember his name. The woman, identified only as "Maria W." told the paper than when she heard about the crash, "one thing he told me kept running through my head. He said, 'One day I will do something that will change the whole system, and then all will know my name and remember.'"

• A member of a gliding club in Sisteron, France, near the crash site, says Lubitz frequented the organization as a child with his parents. Francis Kefer, a member of the club, said on i-Tele television that the Lubitz family and other members of the gliding club in his hometown of Montabaur, Germany, came to the region regularly between 1996 and 2003. The crash site is about 30 miles away from the Aero-club de Sisteron glider airfield.

A child runs along the aisle during a special Mass to honor the victims of the Germanwings jet crash, inside the cathedral Notre Dame de Bourg, in Digne-les-Bains, France, on March 28, 2015.

The New York Times reports Lubitz sought treatment for vision problems that may have jeopardized his ability to continue working as a pilot, according to two unnamed officials with knowledge of the investigation. It is not clear how severe his eye problems were or how they might have been related to his psychological condition, the Times says.

• Bild and French TV Metropole 6 report the pilot, who had been locked out of the cockpit, tried to break down the door with an ax.

• Investigators identify Lubitz's remains from evidence gathered at the site, Bild reports. Officials have said none of the victims' bodies were found intact.

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