PARIS: A young German co-pilot locked himself alone in the cockpit of a Germanwings airliner and flew it into a mountain with what appears to have been the intent to destroy it, a French prosecutor said on Thursday.

Investigators and grieving relatives were left struggling to explain what motivated Andreas Lubitz, 28, to kill all 150 people on board the Airbus A320, including himself, in Tuesday’s crash in the French Alps. French and German officials said there was no indication the crash was a terrorist attack, but gave no alternative explanation for his motives.

Mr Lubitz gained sole control of the aircraft after the captain left the cockpit. He refused to reopen the door and sent plane into its fatal descent, Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said. He did this “for a reason we cannot fathom right now but which looks like intent to destroy this aircraft,” Mr Robin told a news conference in Marseille broadcast live on national TV.

The world’s attention will now focus on the motivations of Mr Lubitz, a German national who joined the budget carrier in September 2013 and had just 630 hours of flying time — compared with the 6,000 hours of the flight captain, named in German media only as “Patrick S.” in accordance with usual practice.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2015

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