A co-pilot with a history of depression was suffering from a “personal life crisis” when he locked the captain out of the cockpit of an airliner and flew 149 people into a mountainside at 500mph, it was claimed last night.
Andreas Lubitz, 28, was suspended from Lufthansa’s flight school for several months before being permitted to retrain and qualify as a pilot. On Tuesday he put Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 into a descent while his senior colleague went to the lavatory, killing everyone on board in one of Europe’s worst peacetime massacres since the Second World War.
Police searching his two homes in Germany last night said that they had made a “significant discovery”. Officers refused to reveal details, saying it was not a suicide