Co-pilot seemed to want to destroy Germanwings plane: prosecutor

This article is more than 12 months old

Mar 26, 2015 08:35 pm

The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps seemed to “show a desire to want to destroy” the plane, the lead investigator said on Thursday (March 27).

He was named as Mr Andreas Lubitz, and was a German citizen who was “not known by us” to have any links to terrorism or extremists, prosecutor Brice Robin told reporters.

He said that the German authorities were expected to provide additional information on his background and private life later on Thursday or Friday (March 28).

The passengers of the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps were unaware of the crash “until the last moment” as “cries are not heard until the end”, the lead prosecutor said.

The 150 people on board died “instantly”, the prosecutor said.

The flight was enroute from Barcelona to Dusseldorf in Germany when it crashed on Tuesday in a remote area of the French Alps.