Alps crash co-pilot ‘practised descent’

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.

Authorities are still puzzling over why co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had suffered from suicidal tendencies and depression in the past, sent the Barcelona-to-Duesseldorf flight straight into the French Alps on March 24, killing all 150 people on board.

This latest development about an earlier flight appears to support the assumption that the crash was not only deliberate but also premeditated, and raises questions about all of the flights where Lubitz was in the cockpit.