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EASA to set up task force on Germanwings report: EU official

Xinhua, May 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Union's transport official on Thursday asked the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to set up a task force to look into the findings of a latest report on Germanwings airline crash in March that caused the deaths of all 150 people on board.

The request came on the heels of the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA)'s preliminary report on the Germanwings crash investigation released on Wednesday.

According to the report, the co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings flight practiced changing the plane's altitudes on the outbound flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona "several times."

Violeta Bulc, European Commissioner for Transport asked the EASA to set up a task force to look into the findings set out in the report.

Bulc said in a press release, the work of the task force should run in parallel to the independent safety investigation led by the French authority, which will gather senior safety and medical staff from the industry and from the regulators.

The investigation areas include "the cockpit door locking system and cockpit access and exit procedures, as well as the criteria and procedures applied to the medical monitoring of pilots."

The airbus A320, operated by Lufthansa's budget airliner Germanwings, crashed in the southern French Alps on March 24 while flying from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany, killing all 144 passengers and six crew members on board. Endit