Germanwings co-pilot Lubitz reset the autopilot before crashing plane

The co-pilot who deliberately crashed the Germanwings jet into a remote Alpine mountainside reset the autopilot to take the doomed plane from 38,000 feet to just 100ft, it has emerged.

Investigators are focusing on Andreas Lubitz’s “personal, family and professional environment” to try to determine why he locked his captain out of the cockpit and crashed into the mountains in the southern French Alps, killing himself and the 149 others aboard the Airbus A320.