AS Anneli Tiirik waited for her boyfriend’s plane to arrive at Manchester airport she had a terrible feeling that something was wrong.
Having just disembarked a flight from her home country of Estonia, Anneli was due to meet partner Paul Bramley in the arrivals hall when he landed from a separate holiday in Spain.
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But, as flights came in and out with no sign of Paul, 28, Anneli’s fear began to grow.
“I knew he would never leave me waiting,” she says. “Something had to be wrong.”
To add to her sense of dread, Anneli was shaken by an eerie experience she had on her earlier three-hour flight into Britain.
“I was half meditating, half asleep when I had a vision of Paul handing me a star,” says Anneli.
She now believes this was Paul’s way of saying goodbye.
When Paul’s aunt turned up at the airport, tissues in hand, Anneli knew the worst had happened.
Paul was among three Brits murdered, including a seven-month-old baby, when deranged co-pilot Andrea Lubitz deliberately crashed Flight 9525 into the French Alps 10 years ago this week.
Prosecutors believe Lubitz, 27, was suffering from psychosis and obsessed with an unfounded fear that his career was ending when he locked the pilot out the cockpit and set the plane on a 430mph collision course with a mountain.
In the aftermath of the crash, Anneli says her “world went dark” yet she couldn’t bring herself to blame Lubitz because he was mentally ill and, a decade on, says she still “doesn’t hold a grudge” against the suicidal pilot.
Anneli, 33, also reveals how she is now expecting her first child to her new partner Kris – but still feels Paul’s love around her.
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She told The Sun: “It feels like the brightest stars go fastest in life.
“It’s almost like they bring so much love, so fast to everyone, then they’re like, okay, ‘I’m ready to go’.
“Paul was that star.
“When I landed in Manchester that day, part of me knew Paul was gone because I actually ‘saw’ him on my plane at the same time as the crash.
“He came to me and he seemed calm and accepting. That brought me comfort.”
Doomed flight
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Paul, from Hull, was never meant to be on the doomed flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, Germany, from where he planned to catch another plane to the UK.
He was meant to fly into Manchester the night before but had a change of heart.
Anneli says: “I knew he was due to arrive around the same time as me, but that’s all the information I had and his phone was switched off.
“I hadn’t heard about the crash because I was in the air myself so it was such a shock.”
When Anneli was told what had happened she could barely take it in. Then harrowing details of co-pilot Lubitz’s involvement began to emerge.
Lubitz had suffered a major depressive episode before the flight but doctors and Germanwings deemed him fit to fly.
In the months before the crash, he had developed an unfounded fear he was losing his eyesight, which he believed would end his career.
A psychiatrist diagnosed a psychosomatic disorder and potential psychosis but Lubitz hid sick notes and kept his condition secret from bosses.
Airbus A320 had just flown into France at 38,000ft before Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit and changed altitude to just 100ft.
The plane quickly descended – as ground crews tried in vain to contact the pilots – and smashed into the side of a mountain near Seyne-les-Alpes near the village of Digne.
The aircraft’s black box recorded captain Patrick Sondenheimer, 37, banging on the cabin door to be let in – and the last minute screams of passengers in the seconds before the collision.
British businessman Matryn Matthews, 50, of Wolverhampton and mum Marina Bandres, 37, and her seven-month-old son Julian, of Manchester, were among those murdered.
Despite the horror, Anneli says she has never hated Lubitz.
She said: “I don’t bear any grudges toward anyone in life, including the pilot. He operated the only way he could operate in that moment because of what was going on in his psyche.
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“It’s sad how people want to harm others when they want to end their own life, all that anger and resentment that must have filled his soul.
“It’s hard to police pilots. The problem is you can’t see by looking at someone what they’re going through. It’s the same with school shooters and people who blow up others.
“They look normal, they blend in and then boom. You don’t know what’s happening under the surface because they’re just harbouring this hatred that’s difficult to see.
“If someone wants help they will reach out but some, like Lubitz, just don’t want help.
I think they like to feel powerful by thinking they can hurt others, there’s an element of power there.”
It feels like the brightest stars go fastest in life. It’s almost like they bring so much love, so fast to everyone, then they’re like, okay, ‘I’m ready to go’. Paul was that star
Anneli Tiirik
Anneli, a tarot card reader, met Paul while working in a bar in Majorca in 2011 after he and his mum Carol moved to the Spanish island from Hull.
The couple travelled around the world and planned to live together when he finished a hospitality management course at the Cesar Ritz College in Switzerland and she completed a Bachelor of Music degree in Birmingham.
After Paul’s death, Anneli remained in the UK for eight years but eventually returned home to Estonia where she met her current partner, Kris. They are now expecting a baby, due in June.
Anneli says Paul’s fate also led her down a “spiritual path” and that she feels him around her all the time.
She said: “Paul’s death led me down a very different path in life and I believe that he is one of my guides.
“I know he’s very happy for me now and I feel his sunny energy, like a feeling of great warmth. He was such a special person, always happy and caring.
“I still miss him but I feel him around me a lot.”
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