The co- pilot who was in control of the Germanwings plane that crashed and killed 150 on board deliberately, deliberately crashed the plane an Airbus A320 into the Mountains.
This is according to investigators who are saying the acts of the co-pilot leave them speechless.
The 28 year old German co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz gained sole control of the aircraft after the captain left the cockpit, refused to re-open the door and appears to have operated controls, sending the plane into its fatal descent, Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said.
He did this “for a reason we cannot fathom right now but which looks like intent to destroy this aircraft,” Robin told a news conference in Marseille broadcast live on national TV.
Describing the final 10 minutes of the passengers on board as the plane hurtled towards a mountain range, Robin said sound recordings from one of its black boxes suggested most of them would not have been aware of their fate until the very end.
The world’s attention will now focus on the motivations of Lubitz, a German national who joined the budget carrier in September 2013 and had just 630 hours of flying time – compared with the 6,000 hours of the flight captain, named in German media only as “Patrick S.” in accordance with usual practice.
Robin said there were no grounds to suspect that Lubitz was carrying out a terrorist attack. “Suicide” was also the wrong word to describe actions which killed so many other people, the prosecutor added: “I don’t necessarily call it suicide when you have responsibility for 100 or so lives.”
A flying club in the Rhineland region of Westerwald said on its website he was one of their members and showed a black ribbon with the flight number, alongside the name “Andreas”.
