Pilot Got Conflicting Orders Before Crash

Cockpit voice recorders show that a Russian pilot received contradictory messages seconds before colliding with a cargo jet last week, killing all 71 people aboard the planes, German investigators said.

Although a cockpit warning system told the pilot to ascend, he followed an order from a Swiss air traffic controller one second later to descend, investigators said. The planes then collided.

Controllers had no way of knowing the pilot was receiving contradictory instruction from his cockpit system, a Swiss air traffic control spokesman said.