Germanwings Co-Pilot Practiced Crash

Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot suspected of deliberately flying a German airliner into the French Alps, appears to have tried to rehearse the plane’s fatal dive during an earlier flight on the day of the crash, the French authorities said in a preliminary report published on Wednesday.

The co-pilot of a Germanwings plane that slammed into the Alps apparently undertook a dry run of the ill-fated flight by setting automatic controls to dangerously low altitudes during a morning trip on the day of the crash, French air accident investigators confirmed Wednesday.