Germanwings Co-Pilot 'Rehearsed' Crash Plan

Andreas Lubitz rehearsed his plan to crash a Germanwings flight into the French Alps, killing 150 people, French investigators have revealed.

And the 27-year-old pilot ignored repeated attempts to contact him from both ground and air staff at the time, the investigators said.

The findings, revealed in a preliminary report into the crash, showed Lubitz had set the altitude dial on the Airbus A320's autopilot to 100ft on five occasions in less than five minutes while flying alone on the outbound Dusseldorf to Barcelona flight on the same day as the crash.

The report said: "On the previous flight, the following facts can be noted: ˆ

:: at 7h 19min 59, noises like those of the cockpit door opening then closing were recorded and corresponded to when the captain left the cockpit; the aeroplane was then at cruise speed at flight level FL370 (37,000ft); ˆ

:: at 7h 20min 29, the flight was transferred to the Bordeaux en-route control centre and the crew was instructed to descend to flight level FL350 (35,000 ft), an instruction read back by the co-pilot; ˆ

:: at 7h 20min 32, the aircraft was put into a descent to flight level FL350 , selected a few seconds earlier;

:: at 7h 20min 50, the selected altitude decreased to 100ft for three seconds and then increased to the maximum value of 49,000ft and stabilised again at 35,000ft;

:: at 7h 21min 10, the Bordeaux control centre gave the crew the instruction to continue the descent to flight level FL210;

:: at 7h 21min 16, the selected altitude was 21,000ft;

:: from 7h 22min 27, the selected altitude was 100ft most of the time and changed several times until it stabilised at 25,000 ft at 7h 24min 13;

:: at 7h 24min 15, the buzzer to request access to the cockpit was recorded;

:: at 7h 24min 29 noises like those of the unlocking of the cockpit door, then its opening, were recorded and corresponded to the captain’s return to the cockpit."

Referring to the crash itself, the report says: "All of the eyewitnesses who were close to the accident site stated that they had seen
the aeroplane in continuous descent, in straight flight and with the wings horizontal."

The report is interim and the French agency BEA says it is still looking at the "systemic failings that may have led to this accident or similar events".

Investigators say their chief focus is on "the current balance between medical confidentiality and flight safety" and the security "compromises" made following the 9/11 attacks on New York which resulted in changes to the cockpit door locking systems.

Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, has so far not commented on the report, saying the airline has not yet had time to analyse the findings.

The co-pilot was known to have suffered from severe depression and had looked up ways of committing suicide in the days before the crash.

Lufthansa previously said it was aware Lubitz had broken off his training in 2009, but added there was nothing in his background to suggest he was a risk.

The company, which also owns Austrian Airlines and Swiss Air, said the pilot had passed all the relevant examinations necessary to become a pilot and was deemed "100% airworthy".

A search of his home following the crash found torn-up sick notes intended for his employer which showed he should not have been flying on the day of the crash.

All 150 people, including three Britons, died in the Airbus A320 crash as the plane flew back from Barcelona to Dusseldorf on 24 March.

Evidence from the recovered voice recorder suggests the co-pilot deliberately locked flight captain Patrick Sondheimer out of the cockpit when he went for a toilet break and then put the plane into a steady descent.

The captain could be heard trying to smash through the cockpit door with an axe while shouting at Lubitz to open the door.

The plane took eight minutes to descend.