Germanwings crash: Co-pilot Lubitz 'accelerated descent'

Data from the second 'black box' flight recorder belonging to the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps confirms that the co-pilot acted deliberately, investigators say.

The French BEA crash investigation agency said Andreas Lubitz repeatedly accelerated the plane's descent.

The second flight recorder from the plane was recovered on Thursday.

All 150 people on board the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf on 24 March were killed.

"A first reading shows that the pilot in the cockpit used the automatic pilot to put the airplane on a descent towards an altitude of 100ft (30m)," the BEA said in a statement on Friday.

"Then several times the pilot modified the automatic pilot settings to increase the speed of the airplane as it descended," it added.

Earlier findings from the cockpit voice recorder suggested Lubitz locked the pilot out of the cockpit.

On Thursday, German prosecutors said the co-pilot had researched suicide methods and the security of cockpit doors on the internet the week before the crash.