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Co-pilot of Germanwings practiced descending plane on outbound flight: report

Xinhua, May 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

The co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings flight practiced "several times" the change of altitudes of the plane on the outbound flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona, investigators said in a report on Wednesday.

According to the preliminary report by the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz set several times the selected altitude of the plane to 100 feet between 07h19 and 07h24 on March 24 on the outbound flight.

"He intentionally modified the autopilot instructions to order for the airplane to descend until it collided with the terrain," announced the BEA in the report.

After carefully studying the black boxes of the flight, the BEA confirmed that "during the cruise phase, the co-pilot was alone in the cockpit", and "did not open the cockpit door during the descent, despite requests for access" made by the captain and other crew members.

According to the BEA, the plane started a continuous and controlled descent on autopilot after the selected altitude was changed from 38,000 feet to 100 feet till the plane crashed on its return journey from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.

The airbus A320, operated by Lufthansa's budget airliner Germanwings, crashed in the southern French Alps on March 24 while flying from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany, killing all 144 passengers and six crew members on board. Endit