The investigation begins

The first impressions from the investigation into the Airbus 320 tragedy that caused the deaths of 150 people –50 of whom were Spanish– rule out an in-flight explosion but still do not clarify one of the main unknowns about the accident: the lack of communication between the pilots and the air controllers for the 10 minutes the plane was descending before crashing into the mountainside.

The news conference held yesterday by Rémi Jouty, director of the BEA –the French organisation charged with investigating the causes of the accident– served to announce that the first of the plane's black boxes recorded voices in the cockpit. However, the investigators have called for more time –days or even months– to analyse the material and decide whether it is a recording of the pilots or other members of the crew. The discovery of the second black box yesterday, should also shed light on the matter.

One hypothesis on the table is the possibility that, for unknown reasons, there was a loss of pressure in the cockpit causing the pilots to lose consciousness due to a lack of oxygen, perhaps due to a malfunction of the emergency masks. That would explain the curve of descent, which is compatible with the use of the auto-pilot function. Meanwhile, as the chairman of the Germanwings airline has recognised, the case is strange to the point of being inexplicable, bearing in mind the security standards in place. As for the tweets against the Catalan passengers, they are now in the hands of the police to pursue and to bring the haters to justice.