FRANCE: Prosecutor Says Airliner Was Crashed Deliberately By Co-Pilot

Via ABC News:

A Marseille prosecutor says the co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps appeared to have crashed the plane deliberately. Prosecutor Brice Robin said the action of manipulating "what is called the flight monitoring system in order to embark on the descent of the plane", could "only be deliberate". "I repeat, when he was alone, in charge of the Airbus, the co-pilot started the flight monitoring system to get the plane to descend," he said. "The action on this altitude selector can only be voluntary, I repeat action on this altitude selector can only be deliberate."

The German citizen, left in sole control of the Airbus A320 after the captain left the cockpit, refused to re-open the door and pressed a button that sent the jet into its fatal descent, Mr Robin said. He said that "one can then hear several calls from the commander asking to be allowed into the cockpit", but there was no answer. "He knocked on the door and there was no answer from the co-pilot either," he said. "One can then hear the noise of human breathing within the cockpit, and that human breathing noise can be heard until the final impact which means that theoretically the co-pilot was alive.