Pilot Locked Out Of Crash Jet's Cockpit: Report

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One of the pilots of a jet that crashed in the Alps killing all 150 people on board was locked out of the cockpit before it started its descent, according to US media.

Investigators have not revealed details of conversations on the cockpit voice recorder black box recovered from the crash site.

But the New York Times quoted a senior military source involved in the probe as saying one of the two Germanwings pilots appeared to have left the cockpit and then been unable to get back in.

The source said: "The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer. And then he hits the door stronger and no answer.

"There is never an answer. You can hear he is trying to smash the door down."

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Martyn Matthews, of Wolverhampton, with his family. Mr Matthews, 50, was travelling on business for the German automotive manufacturer Huf

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Paul Andrew Bramley, 28, originally from Hull. He was studying hospitality and hotel management in Lucerne, Switzerland

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Filmmaker Marina Bandres, who came from Jaca in the Spanish Pyrenees and lived in Manchester, was travelling on the plane with her baby Julian Pracz-Bandres

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Sixteen exchange students from the same German school were also on board the plane

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The official added: "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."

The source said conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf had been "very smooth, very cool."

In January a Delta Air Lines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after a pilot was accidentally locked out of the cockpit.

The door malfunctioned leaving the first officer to land the plane at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

Cockpit doors have been reinforced since the September 11 attacks in 2001, to stop intruders from reaching the crew and controls.

The New York Times report emerged after a bus carrying the first relatives to the area where their loved ones lost their lives left Barcelona on Wednesday evening.

The group of 14 will meet with other family members who chose to fly from Barcelona to Marseille this morning.

The crash investigation is likely to focus on why there was no distress call from the plane, which went into a slow descent shortly after reaching its 38,000ft cruising altitude and continued along its flight path for some eight minutes before smashing into mountains with such force that it was "pulverised", according to one official.

Theories include the complete incapacity of the cockpit crew, possibly after a windscreen blow-out.

Asked about reports that the second black box - the flight data recorder which indicates how an aircraft's systems were working - had been found but was too badly damaged to be of use, a French air investigation bureau spokesman said this was not the case.

"We have not located the second black box," he said.

Earlier, Germanwings parent company Lufthansa said the plane, piloted by two experienced captains, was "technically flawless", while the firm's CEO Carsten Spohr, himself a pilot, described the crash as "inexplicable".

Lufthansa said: "We cannot comprehend how a technically flawless airplane steered by two experienced pilots could encounter such a situation at cruising altitude.

"All of us at Lufthansa are working to ensure that such an incident will never occur again. We cannot believe that this has happened. We are doing everything to support the families."

A spokesman for the French air investigation bureau, the BEA, said that "usable" material had been extracted from the black box cockpit voice recorder found at the crash site.

He said it covered the entire flight but would not say what conversations, if any, between the pilots had been captured on the recording, nor what language they had been conducted in.

Three Britons - Martyn Matthews, 50, Paul Bramley, 26, and Marina Bandres Lopez Belio, 37 - were among 150 on the Airbus A320 plane to have lost their lives.

While some nationalities were still to be verified, Germanwings said the dead included 72 Germans, 35 Spaniards and two Australians.

Two Americans are also known to have been on the plane

Other countries with passengers on the flight included Iran, Israel, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Colombia.

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Malu Rasanya