French magazine insists video of doomed airliner is genuine

A French magazine is standing by its claim that it accessed video of the harrowing final seconds inside the cabin of the doomed Germanwings jetliner, and questioned the veracity of the official investigation into the crash. Paris Match, which teamed up with German newspaper Bild, refused to back down from its story describing the sights and sounds of the hellish moments March 24 before the Airbus 320 was deliberately crashed into a French mountainside by one of its pilots. French officials have said the story is false, and that any cellphones found at the scene had not been examined yet.

But the magazine’s reporter, Frédéric Helbert, said he and the editorial team watched the cellphone footage dozens of times, and that if investigators aren’t aware of the video, then that indicates a bigger problem than a leak. “If I have the cellphone of the most important protagonist in this situation, the [police] and the people connected to the investigation have it, too,” Helbert said. “And if they haven’t started working on it, then I think it is time.” Meanwhile, Germanwngs chief executive Thomas Winkelmann and Carsten Spohr, CEO of Germanwings’ parent company, Lufthansa, laid a wreath at a memorial stone near the crash site.

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