Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz spent time online researching suicide methods and cockpit door security in the week before crashing Flight 9525, prosecutors said Thursday. This is the first time evidence has surfaced hinting that the fatal descent may have been a premeditated act.
As the browsing history on a tablet computer found at Lubitz’s apartment added a disturbing new piece to the puzzle of the March 24 crash, French investigators said they had recovered the Airbus A320’s flight data recorder inching towards a conclusion.
Attention has been focused on Lubitz since investigators evaluated the plane’s cockpit voice recorder last week. They believe the 27-year-old locked his captain out of the cockpit during the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf and deliberately plunged the plane into a French mountainside.
The co-pilot researched “treatment methods on one hand and types and ways of going about a suicide on the other,” prosecutors’ spokesman Ralf Herrenbrueck said in a statement.
In addition, on at least one day, (Lubitz) concerned himself for several minutes with search terms about cockpit doors and their security precautions.
– Ralf Herrenbrueck, Prosecutors’ Spokesperson
In Marseille, prosecutor Brice Robin underlined French investigators’ conviction that “he was alive until the moment of impact, we are nearly certain. ... Alive and conscious.” He also said the co-pilot appears to have acted repeatedly to stop an excessive speed alarm from sounding.
The flight data recorder was “completely blackened” as though it had been burned, but it was “possibly usable,” Robin said.
Investigators also found torn-up notes from doctors excusing Lubitz from work, including one that would have kept him off work on the day of the crash.
Prosecutors have said that they haven’t found any sign of a physical illness and have no evidence he told anyone what he was going to do.
The impact of the crash shattered the plane into tiny pieces. Robin said that investigators have found and studied 2,854 body parts at the site.
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