screaming, quote, for god s sake open the door. standing by with more on this astounding report is frederik pleitgen in cologne, germany. good morning, fred. reporter: good morning, john. you are right. it is a chilling read the transcript. the flight seemed to start off normally. it took off 20 minutes late. it appears even in the early stages of the flight andreas lubitz the copilot was setting his captain patrick sonderheimer up to leave the cockpit. sonderheimer said he forgot to go to the bathroom in barcelona. lubitz says you can go anytime. they reached cruising altitude sonderheimer does leave the cockpit. his chair can be heard going back and he leaves the cockpit. that is when the chilling moments of the transcript start. we are 10:29 local time in the air. air traffic radar detects the
board that plane because it indicates that they knew for at least eight minutes that something was terribly wrong, and they were helpless to do anything about it as the ground kept moving closer and the plane kept descending towards the alps. this all began before takeoff when the pilot, patrick sonden heimer told his co-pilot that he hadn t gone to the restroom in barcelona. that s a key point. it s not uncommon for the pilot and co-pilot to stay in the cockpit for such a quick trip. but lubitz encouraged his pilot to get up once they reached the cruising altitude. you can hear him say okay, go ahead. and the pilot left the co-pilot in control, that s when it s believed he was locked out. air traffic radar detected the plane was starting to descend.
the captain said that because of the delay, he hadn t managed to go to the bathroom before taking off in barcelona. lubitz says don t worry, you can go at any time. now, that happens at around 38,000 feet when the plane reaches cruising altitude. at that point, again, lubitz tells the captain, you can go now. and the captain at that point does exit the cockpit. now, shortly after that the plane starts descending. this is something that s picked up by air traffic radar. and shortly after that at around 10:32 local time air traffic control tries to get in touch with the plane but receives no answer. again, a couple of minutes later, the pilot, the captain, can be heard banging on the outside of the door saying for god s sake open the door. however, of course andreas lubitz does not do that. then at around 5,000 meters in altitude a warning goes off in the cockpit saying pull up terrain. that of course because the plane is descending towards the mountains that are pretty high and
can t verify but what published in this newspaper. at 10:29 local time, air traffic radar detects the plane is beginning descend. three minutes later air traffic control tries to make contact but gets no response by the man in the cockpit. after that a loud bang is heard on the door. the captain can be heard saying forgod sake open the door. it s the first time passengers can be heard screaming. at 10:35 a loud metallic bang can be heard on the door at this point. the plane is at 7,000 meters. 90 seconds later, another alarm goes off saying terrain pull up. at this point the plane is at 5,000 meters and the captain can be heard screaming open the door. at 10:38 the plane is descending very close to the french alp. the pilot can be heard breathing normally. very close to the terrain because remember we re in a mountainous area. at 10:40 the right wing scrapes
gaps in the radar coverage, right? reporter: yeah, there are big dead zones in the coverage, heather. and that s because the new satellite-based systems are very expensive. so companies and countries rely on radar and a big reason that this search has been so difficult can really be explained by one of the most simple lessons from grade school, the world is round and the curvature of the earth makes it very hard for radar to pick up anything that is not visible on a straight line. radar works, it s for the most part air traffic radar and other kinds of radars that are trying to find airplanes are mostly line of sight. there are some over the horizon radars but they re very low frequency and not used that often but normal radars, if you get behind terrain, it is very difficult.