Alps crash aircraft was grounded just 24 hours before doomed flight over technical fears
THE Germanwings Airbus A320 which yesterday crashed into the French Alps was grounded just 24 hours before over technical concerns.
The day before the plane left on its final journey from Barcelona, technical issues including landing gear problems were discovered, according to reports.
Other A320s are now undergoing urgent safety assessments.
The news comes as pilots and crew have reportedly refused to fly in the aftermath of the incident.
Lufthansa denied that there was any link between the repair and the cancelled flights.
A spokesman for the airline group, which owns Germanwings, said that crews were refusing to fly for “personal reasons”.
It was also revealed yesterday that an Airbus A321 operated by Lufthansa went into a deep dive after key sensors iced up and fed the aircraft’s systems false data four months ago.
The incident on a flight from Spain to France will be analysed by investigators examining yesterday’s crash.
Flightpath of crashed Lufthansa Germanwings Airbus A320 Barcelona to Dusseldorf
It led to the European Aviation Safety Agency issuing an emergency directive.
According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, the A321 – a stretched variant of the A320 – was travelling from Bilbao to Munich on November 5 with 109 people on board when it dropped at a rate of 3,000ft per minute.
The crew only regained control of the aircraft after “switching off on-board computers”.
Germanwings flight 4U9525 crashed while en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.
An operation is underway to investigate the incident, with a number of teams combing the crash site today.
