ANDREAS Gunter Lubitz has been named as the co-pilot in the cockpit of the Germanwings flight which crashed in the French Alps killing all 150 passengers and crew on board

PlaneCrash

The 28-year-old German with just 600 hours of flying experience deliberately locked his captain out of the cockpit before crashing into the mountain, after 11 long minutes of controlled descent.

The A320 Airbus’ black box has been examined by Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin who revealed that the captain could be heard trying to smash the door down and the only noise from Lubitz was his breathing.

In sole control of the Barcelona-Dusseldorf plane, Lubitz refused to open the door to the captain, who has only been named in the German press as father-of-two ‘Patrick S’, and sent the jet into its doomed descent.

The last ten minutes of the flight ensued in absolute silence, with no trace of panic from the co-pilot.

But Robin said ´he is not known as a terrorist, absolutely not.’

The revelation that one pilot was locked out initially pointed to either suicide or sudden illness but experts doubted illness was the reason given the gentle downward trajectory.

The flight, number 4U 9525, which first raised alarms at 10:31am when it left its assigned altitude, smashed into a ravine at 6,200ft.

Germanwings confirms that there were 72 Germans on board, and believe there were 35 Spaniards.

Spain, meanwhile, believes there may have been as many as 50.

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