Germanwings co-pilot ‘deliberately crashed plane': French officials

PARIS: The chief Marseille prosecutor handling the investigation into the crash of a Germanwings jetliner said on Thursday that evidence from the cockpit voice recorder indicated that the co-pilot had deliberatelylocked the captain out of the cockpit and steered the plane into its fatal descent.

“At this moment, in light of investigation, the interpretation we can give at this time is that the co-pilot through voluntary abstention refused to open the door of the cockpit to the commander, and activated the button that commands the loss of altitude,” the prosecutor, Brice Robin, said.

He said it appeared that the co-pilot’s intention had been “to destroy the aircraft.” He said that the voice recorder showed that the co-pilot had been breathing until before the moment of impact, suggesting that he was conscious and deliberate in killing 144 passengers and five other crew members in the French Alps on Tuesday.

The inquiry had shown that the crash was intentional, he said, and he was considering changing his investigation from involuntary manslaughter to voluntary manslaughter.

He said there was no indication that this was a terrorist attack. He said that law enforcement officials were investigating the background of the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who was 28 years old, and came from the German town of Montabaur.

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