Germanwings co-pilot apparently practiced rapid descent before fatal crash

PARIS, May 6 (UPI) -- Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, accused of deliberately crashing an airliner in the French Alps, apparently practiced rapid descent on a previous flight.

The French Bureau of Investigations and Analyses released a report stating that Lubitz, 27, repeatedly set the Germanwings plane's altitude to 100 feet when the captain left the cockpit temporarily on an outbound flight from Düsseldorf, Germany, to Barcelona, Spain, on March 24.

The changes to altitude happened about 30 seconds after the captain left the cockpit for a five-minute period. Lubitz set the altitude meter to 100 feet, despite instructions from air traffic control to set it to 35,000 feet and later to 21,000 feet, according to the report.

He also set it to the maximum altitude of 49,000 feet once. He returned the altitude dial to normal after changing it several times during the captain's absence, as if practicing.

Lubitz is accused of crashing the Airbus A320 airliner intentionally as it returned to Düsseldorf from Barcelona -- 150 people died and there were no survivors. Prosecutors believe Lubitz locked the pilot out of the cockpit and descended the flight until its crash.

He was known to have suffered from depression and previously researched suicide and cockpit doors, according to prosecutors.

The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily declined to give Lubitz a medical certificate in 2010, raising questions about his mental state citing a "history of reactive depression."