Germanwings Pilot Makes Emotional Speech

Following the Germanwings crash Tuesday that killed 150 people, boarding another Germanwings plane soon after the disaster sounds a little terrifying. On Wednesday, a Germanwings pilot assured passengers that they'd return home safely on a flight from Hamburg to Cologne. With everyone still disturbed by the plane's crash into the French Alps the day before, the pilot's sincerity and candor made one passenger feel much better about the ensuing flight and she posted about the interaction on Germanwings' Facebook.

In the post, Britta Englisch admits that she had "mixed feelings" about flying with Germanwings the morning after copilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately downed Flight 4U 9525, and she probably wasn't the only one. There hasn't been a large commercial airline crash intentionally brought about by the pilot since 1999, and this incident shocked the world.

Englisch writes that the pilot of her Germanwings flight Wednesday morning personally welcomed every passenger onboard the plane and then openly spoke to the entire flight, promising their safe arrival in Cologne. Not only did he reassure everyone onboard, but he did so from the cabin, where passengers could actually see his face. The pilot admitted that the entire crew was shaken by the tragic crash the day before, but that they were all working this flight voluntarily and had families they wanted to return to.

Here is a translation of Englisch's post to Germanwings' Facebok:

Yesterday morning at 8:40 a.m., I got onto a Germanwings flight from Hamburg to Cologne with mixed feelings. But then the captain not only welcomed each passenger separately, he also made a short speech before take off. Not from the cockpit — he was standing in the cabin. He spoke about how the accident touched him and the whole crew. About how queasy the crew feels, but that everybody from the crew is voluntarily here. And about his family and that the crew have a family and that he is going to do everything to be with his family again tonight. It was completely silent. It was completely silent. And then everybody applauded. I want to thank this pilot. He understood what everybody was thinking. And that he managed to give, at least me, a good feeling for this flight.

Germanwing's website homepage reads, "We are in mourning." Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Germanwing's parent company, Lufthansa, told The New York Times: "We are horrified that something of this nature could have taken place. It is the worst nightmare that anyone can have in our company."

Images: Germanwings/Facebook; Germanwings