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Alps Crash Co-Pilot 'Wanted To Destroy Plane'

The co-pilot of a plane which crashed in the Alps activated the descent button and refused to open the cockpit door to the pilot.

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, 27, was alone at the controls of the Germanwings flight and "intentionally" sent the plane into the doomed descent.

He said that the crew member - who won a Federal Aviation Authority award in 2013 - wanted to "destroy the plane".

He said: "We assume the (captain) went to the loo or something. The co-pilot is on his own in charge of the plane, and it is while he is alone that he uses the flight monitoring system which starts the descent of the plane."

The flight monitoring system cannot be accidentally triggered, he explained.

"We hear several cries from the captain asking to get in. Through the intercom system he identifies himself - but there is no answer. He knocks on the door and asks for it to be opened - but there is no answer."

The plane ploughed into the side of a mountain at around 430mph, killing all of the 150 people on board instantly.

"I think the victims only realised at the last moment because on the recording you only hear the screams literally on the last moments of the recording."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the revelation brings the tragedy a "new, simply incomprehensible dimension".

In light of the disaster, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has told British airlines to review their safety procedures. Budget airline easyJet has already announced it will require two crew members to be in the cockpit at all times.

Meanwhile, more details are emerging about the co-pilot amid intense speculation about his possible motives.

Mr Lubitz's house in the western German town of Montabaur and flat in Dusseldorf have been searched by investigators. Officers have been pictured removing evidence from the Montabaur residence, including a computer.

German media is focusing on the possibility he committed suicide and may have suffered from depression.

According to Mr Robin, breathing could be heard from the cockpit and was normal, leading investigators to believe he was conscious at the time. Other than that, the cockpit was "silent".

There was no contact made with air traffic control in the final eight minutes of the flight.

He said there is nothing to indicate that this was a terrorism-related event, adding that investigators are instead focusing on the co-pilot's "personal, family and professional environment" to try to determine his motives.

Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Germanwings' parent company Lufthansa, said its pilots are selected carefully and go through rigorous checks.

He avoided describing the crash as suicide, saying: "When you are responsible for 150 people at the back, I don't necessarily call that a suicide".

"Not in our worst nightmare could we imagine something like this happening," he said.

The headteacher of Joseph-Koenig High School in Haltern, Germany, which lost 16 students and two teachers in the crash, says the state governor called him to say the cause "was without a doubt suicide".

Ulrich Wessel said: "I gave this information to my colleagues immediately, and they were just as stunned as I was.

"I told them it is much, much worse than we had thought. It doesn't make the number of dead any worse, but if it had been a technical defect then measures could have been taken so that it would never happen again."

A member of the flight club in Montabaur who knew Mr Lubitz said: "He has happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well. He was very happy, he gave off a good feeling."

In France, gendarmes and investigators have been trawling through the debris of the plane's wreckage, which is scattered widely across the remote crash site.

Each body must be removed by helicopter as the mountainside is very steep. The recovery process is expected to take a week.

The co-pilot's family were in France but being kept away from grieving relatives, who have travelled to the scene.

The fate of the Germanwings plane has similarities to that of LAM flight 470 which crashed in Namibia in November 2013, killing all 27 passengers and six crew.

Investigators believe the Embraer 190 jet was flown into the ground by the captain after his co-pilot went to the toilet.

The jet's captain, Herminio dos Santos Fernandes was believed to have had personal problems at the time of his death.