On Thursday, a French prosecutor said that the co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings Airbus A320 locked his captain out of the cockpit before deliberately crashing into a mountain to ‘destroy the plane’.
He revealed that the pilot, which is now being held responsible for the death of 150 people onboard, is Andreas Lubitz, a German citizen.
The information released by authorities investigating the crash about the co-pilot has been sparse, but here’s what we know about Lubitz.
- Lubitz was a 28-year-old from Montabaur, a town in the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and lived with his parents.
- He began working for Germanwings in September 2013 and had 630 hours of flight experience.
- Lubitz was registered as a member of a private flight club, LSC Westerwald, and was an avid runner who often took part in local races.
- His Facebook page lists his interests as aviation and music.
- Minutes before the plane crashed, Lubitz “was breathing normally, it wasn't the breathing of someone who was struggling”.
- He was not known to have terrorism links or extremist links.