The Germanwings co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a jet in the Alps in March practised entering the fatal descent settings on the outbound flight and ignored repeated attempts to contact him from both ground and air, investigators said this morning.
A preliminary report on the crash showed that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had set the altitude dial on the Airbus A320's autopilot to 100 feet five times while alone in the cockpit on the previous flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona on 24 March.
The Germanwings Airbus 320 was en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf later that day when it crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
French investigators believe that Lubitz, who had been diagnosed as suicidal in the past, deliberately brought the plane down.
Doctors had recently found no sign that he intended to hurt himself or others, but he was receiving treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists who had signed him off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.
Police found torn-up sick notes during a search of his apartment after the crash.
