Based on the few facts known about the Germanwings Airbus A320 crash, it is a highly unusual event. For a modern short-haul airliner to develop – in the cruise phase of flight – problems the crew cannot deal with is almost unheard of.
According to unofficial data from a flight-tracking service, the aircraft took off for its scheduled flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf in good weather just after 10:00 local time, took about 20min climbing to a cruise height of 38,000ft, where it levelled out for just 3 to 4min, and then entered a steady descent profile without altering its ground speed to any significant extent from the 420-450kt (780-830km/h) adopted in the cruise. It was not a dramatic descent, but was very steady all the way to impact. It also appears to have crashed quite close to its flight-planned track, so there was no sudden veer off course.
In the press conference given by the Lufthansa Group, a technical spokesman would not confirm whether there was an emergency call, saying there was conflicting evidence. So either there was no message, or – if there was some kind of attempt by the crew to communicate with air traffic control – the message was not clear.
Failure to inform ATC about an emergency usually means the crew are too busy dealing with a problem, but there is no evidence as to what that might have been.
In April last year, during a period of intense speculation about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Flightglobal published this information: “Including MH370, Ascend Online shows that a total of 46 Western-built jet airliners have crashed with the loss of all on board while in the en-route phase. Of these, 13 were caused by sabotage, two more by hijacks and one was shot down. Three more were caused by undetermined causes where flightcrew suicide is suspected.”
