New evidence uncovered by French investigators in the crash of the Germanwings airliner in the March crash in the French Alps points toward premeditation and and deliberation in the incident.

According to the investigators, Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot on the ill-fated flight, practiced controlled gradual descents earlier in the day of the fateful crash. Investigations of the “black box’ from the aircraft show that Lubitz had adjusted the “selected altitude” on the autopilot several times during the first leg into Barcelona. 

On the  earlier flight, Lubitz waited for the pilot to exit the cabin before practicing his descent after flight controllers in Barcelona ordered a descent from 37,000 feet to 35,000 feet. During that time he adjusted the target altitude to 100 feet. But, his adjustments were too brief for flight controllers, passengers and even the pilot to notice.

It was on the return trip to Dusseldorf that Lubitz locked the pilot out of the cockpit after the pilot exited to use the lavatory and descended into the French Alps, crashing the Airbus A320 and killing all aboard.

The rehearsal, carried out by Lubitz, shows how prepared he was. The flight control system of the Airbus do not allow for extreme maneuvers by pilots that may result in crashes, but could not detect and prevent the maneuver that Lubitz ultimately used.

Once the pilot was again out of the cockpit, Lubitz once again carried out the maneuver he had practiced earlier and set the target altitude to 100 feet, putting the aircraft into a 3,400 foot descent that ended at the 6,800 foot level of the French Alps on March 24th. 

Prior to the fateful day, Lubitz did not fly from March 13th until March 22nd. During that time, investigators say in the 30-page report, the investigations into Lubitz’s personal computers showed that Lubitz had researched different methods of suicide as well as mass murder.

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