Co-pilot of Germanwings crash which killed Wolverhampton father wanted to 'destroy the plane'

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, a German national, was alone at the controls and "intentionally" sent the plane into the doomed descent.

He said pounding could be heard on the door during the final minutes before the crash as alarms sounded.

The co-pilot "voluntarily" refused to open the door and his breathing was normal throughout the final minutes of the flight, he said.

He continued that information the co-pilot did not say a word once the captain left the cockpit. "It was absolute silence," he said.

Martyn Matthews, aged 50 and from Wolverhampton, was travelling to a meeting in Germany and had been on business in Barcelona when the plane crashed in the French Alps.

He leaves children Jade, 20, and Nathan, 23, as well as a wife, Sharon, aged 48.

Mr Matthews was a quality manager at Tipton-based automotive firm Huf UK, part of the German-owned Huf Group .

The prosecutor said the cockpit voice recorder gave information from the first 30 minutes of the flight.

For the first 20 minutes the two pilots talked in a normal fashion and were as courteous as two normal pilots would be.

Then the captain is heard asking the co-pilot to take over and the sound of a chair being pushed back and a door being closed is heard.

It was assumed that the captain had gone to the toilet, leaving the co-pilot in charge of the plane, the prosecutor said.

Mr Robin went on: "The co-pilot uses the flight monitoring system to start the descent of the plane. This can only be done voluntarily, not automatically.

"We hear several cries from the captain asking to get in. Through the intercom system he identifies himself - but there is no answer. He knocks on the door and asks for it to be opened - but there is no answer."

Mr Robin said that after entry to the cockpit was denied, the sound of breathing from inside the cockpit was heard and this sound carried on until the moment of impact. "The co-pilot was still alive at this point," Mr Robin said.

He added that there was no answer from the cockpit to communication with ground controllers or from other aircraft in the area.

The cockpit voice recorder then shows that there were alarm signals going off which indicated to all those on board the proximity of the ground.

Asked about Mr Lubitz's ethnicity, Mr Robin said: "He was a German national and I don't know his ethnic background.

"He is not listed as a terrorist, if that is what you are insinuating."

Pressed on the co-pilot's religion, he said: "I don't think this is where this lies. I don't think we will get any answers there."

Mr Robin said black box recordings showed that Mr Lubitz "was breathing normally, it wasn't the breathing of someone who was struggling".

Speaking about whether the passengers realised what was happening, Mr Robin said: "I think the victims only realised at the last moment because on the recording we only hear the screams on the last moments of the recording."

He added: "I believe that we owe the families the transparency of what the investigation is pointing to and what is going on, we owe it to them to tell them what happened.

"The families have been informed of everything I just told you."

In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances said he was 28-years-old and showed no signs of depression when they saw him last autumn.

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

Lubitz had obtained his glider pilot's license as a teenager and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Mr Ruecker said. He described Lubitz as a "rather quiet" but friendly young man.

The Airbus A320, on a flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, began to descend from cruising altitude after losing radio contact with ground control and slammed into the remote mountain on Tuesday morning, killing all 150 people on board.

Lufthansa has not identified the pilots but said the co-pilot joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours.

The captain had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor, Lufthansa said.

The A320 is designed to allow emergency entry if a pilot inside is unresponsive, but the crew's override code does not work - and goes into a five-minute lockdown - if the person inside the cockpit specifically denies entry, according to an Airbus training video and a pilot who has six years of experience with the jets.

The pilot said airlines in Europe are not required to have two people in the cockpit at all times. European regulators have refused to comment on the regulation.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the standard US operating procedure is that if one of the pilots leaves, for example to use the toilet, a flight attendant takes their spot in the cockpit.

The New York Times earlier quoted an investigator as saying someone can be heard knocking on the cockpit door. The source reportedly said: "And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer."

Lufthansa has refused to identify the pilots, or give details of ages and nationality, but it said the co-pilot joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours.

The captain had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor, Lufthansa said.