Germanwings pilot comforts anxious passengers

Germanwings is still reeling from the crash that killed 150 passengers.

A journalist for Bloomberg has tweeted his brother's praise for a Germanwings pilot who comforted scared passengers on a recent flight.

My brother @hughrochekelly was on a @germanwings flight this morning. Pilot seemed to be an amazing person. pic.twitter.com/FLxUk19yBA

— Lorcan Roche Kelly (@LorcanRK) April 2, 2015

The tweet shows the traumatising effect of last month's Germanwings crash into the French Alps that killed 150 people - a crash that prosecutors believe was deliberately caused by the flight's co-pilot Andreas Lubitz.

Here is the full text of the tweet:

So, I was on a Germanwings flight this morning (Berlin-Paris). It hadn't even occurred to me to think about that before I got on the plane, but there was a tense vibe - the crew were on edge, some passengers were definitely more nervous than normal... Once I was actually onboard, and looked at the crew door, it was all too easy to imagine how horrific the time before that crash would have been.

I was thinking about what kind of a response a company should make to something like this. Do you ask everyone to carry on as normal? With utmost professionalism and a stiff upper lip?

Then, our pilot came out and made almost his normal pre flight speech, except he did standing in the front row. He spoke (at length, in 3 languages) about how it was a difficult and strange time for him and for all the cabin crew, how they still all love doing their job, and how they're thankful that they still have passengers coming onto their planes. Mostly though, he said he just wanted to come out and stand in front of everyone, and let all the passengers on his flight have a moment of eye contact with him, and for us to meet him and for him to meet us.

I can't know, of course, if making that speech was a personal decision, or if it was something that was agreed on, but anyone listening could tell it was a difficult thing to do- to stand in front of 150 more-nervous-than-they-really-needed-to-be people and say "everything's going to be fine, because I am going to look after it," and I can't help but have enormous respect for him.
So, well done that man.