The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 appeared to have practised a controlled descent on his flight into Barcelona just two hours before he intentionally crashed the A320 jet into a mountainside on the return flight to Duesseldorf, air accident investigators said.

The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings flight repeatedly sped up the plane as he used the automatic pilot to descend the A320 into the Alps, the French air accident investigation agency said.

The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 appears to have researched suicide methods and cockpit door security in the days before he flew the plane into the French Alps, killing 150 people.

Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz appears to have hidden evidence of an illness from his employers, including having been excused by a doctor from work the day he crashed a passenger plane into a mountain.

The Germanwings airline said it is stunned and “utterly baffled” as to why one of its pilots deliberately crashed a plane into the Alps killing himself and 149 other people.

A modern version of Richard Wagner’s opera Tannhauser has been cancelled in Germany after the opening-night audience complained about new scenes showing Jews being executed and dying in the gas chambers.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled today as workers at several German airports joined other public employees staging short-term strikes in a row over pay.

Terrible twins Jedward are being tipped as hot favourites to represent Ireland in the 2011 Eurovision song contest.

Paris’s main airport got an early Christmas gift flown in from the United States today – a supply of de-icing fluid to get planes airborne.

Heavy overnight snowfall has grounded about 450 flights and caused major delays at German airports.

FREEZING temperatures and snowstorms killed 12 more people and caused travel chaos across northern Europe yesterday as some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans.

>Kirsten Grieshaber reports from Berlin as leader Angela Merkel reveals an old habit of hoarding food.

An exit poll indicates Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right alliance has lost control of Germany’s most populous state.

Chancellor Angela Merkel risks losing her majority in Germany’s upper house of parliament as the country’s most populous state votes today – a setback that could make it harder to run Europe’s biggest economy.

Flights will finally start again in the UK tomorrow after air traffic control company Nats lifted restrictions for Scotland and part of northern England.

KLM, the Dutch subsidiary of Air France, today said it has flown a plane through the cloud of volcanic ash covering Europe without suffering any damage.

Irish airspace, with the exception of a block off the south coast, will continue to operate without restrictions, according to the Irish Aviation Authority.

FOUR men accused of a foiled German terror plot were fuelled by hatred and aimed to cause destruction on the scale of September 11, a court heard yesterday.

Four men accused of a foiled German terror plot were fuelled by hatred and aimed to cause destruction on the scale of September 11, a court heard today.

Blankets of snow fell across northern Europe today, closing an icy Eiffel Tower in Paris and causing flight cancellations.

Police retrieved the bodies of four men believed to be Macedonians kidnapped in southern Afghanistan but the convoy carrying the remains was later hit by a roadside bomb today, a provincial governor said.

An early winter cold spell brought heavy snowfall to parts of Europe this weekend, paralysing public transport and roads and cutting electricity to tens of thousands of households.

Tens of thousands of young people descended on Cologne in Germany today to kick off the 20th World Youth Day celebrations that will include German-born Pope Benedict XVI’s first foreign trip.

Four German children were freed unharmed tonight after police stormed a house cellar where they had been held for more than five hours by a man wielding two knives.

German police have arrested the son of the late Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha on a warrant from Switzerland, a prosecutor said today.

Germany’s top banker and five co-defendants were acquitted of criminal charges today over payments to executives during a high-profile 2000 telecom takeover battle.

Vodafone’s former chief executive testified today that his company’s takeover in 2000 of mobile phone firm Mannesmann was determined purely by market pressures, and was not influenced by executive payments under scrutiny at the trial of the German mobile operator’s former head.

A JORDANIAN who says he was once Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard has been convicted of helping plan terror attacks in Germany and sentenced to four years in prison.