Co-pilot deliberately slams plane in Alps; families ask why

He underwent a regular security check on Jan. 27 and it found nothing untoward, and previous security checks in 2008 and 2010 also showed no issues, the local government in Duesseldorf said.

Lufthansa’s chief said Lubitz started training in 2008 and there was a “several-month” gap in his training six years ago. Spohr said he couldn’t say what the reason was, but after the break, “he not only passed all medical tests but also his flight training, all flying tests and checks.”

Robin avoided describing the crash as a suicide.

“Usually, when someone commits suicide, he is alone,” he said. “When you are responsible for 150 people at the back, I don’t necessarily call that a suicide.”

In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances told The Associated Press that Lubitz appeared fine when they saw him last fall as he renewed his glider pilot’s license.

“He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well,” said a member of the glider club, Peter Ruecker, who watched Lubitz learn to fly. “He gave off a good feeling.”

READ: Co-pilot was ‘very happy’ with Germanwings job

Ruecker said he remembers Lubitz as “rather quiet but friendly” when he first showed up at the club as a 14- or 15-year-old saying he wanted to learn to fly.

Lubitz was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Ruecker said.

Lubitz’s Facebook page, deleted Tuesday, showed a smiling man in a dark brown jacket posing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It was restored as an “In Memory” site following the French prosecutor’snews conference.

At the crash site, helicopters shuttled back and forth Thursday as investigators continue retrieving remains and pieces of the plane, shattered from the high-speed impact of the crash.

The principal of Joseph Koenig High School in Haltern, Germany, which lost 16 students and two teachers in the crash, said the state governor called him to tell him about the probe’s conclusion.

“It is much, much worse than we had thought,” principal Ulrich Wessel said.