Germanwings crash: Co-pilot battled depression in 2009, friends said

The co-pilot, who is believed to have deliberately slammed the Germanwings flight 9525 into the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, had battled depression and burnout in the past, his friends said.

Authorities claimed that 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz appeared to "show a desire to want to destroy" the plane. They said that he was alone at the control during the last few minutes leading to the crash and refused to let the pilot in. He deliberately began the descent of the plane by turning on the "flight monitoring system" button and did not speak a word in the last 10 minutes before the plane crash, reported Fox News.

The report said that Lubitz had taken a break from his lifelong pursuit of flying in 2009 due to the condition but soon resumed work. A member of Luftsportclub, who watched Lubitz learn to fly, said that he was happy to have a job with Lufthansa's Germanwings and was doing well.

Residents who knew Lubitz were dumbfounded to know that their neighbor could have committed such an atrocious act. A woman remarked that he always dreamt of becoming a pilot and pursued his goal with vigour and reached it. Another neighbour refused to believe what the investigators had claimed, saying that he will believe it only if "it is 100 percent proved."

Lubitz began flying with Germanwings in 2013 and had 630 flight hours. After completing his training, Lubitz spent an 11-month waiting period working as a flight attendant before becoming a co-pilot on the Germanwings A320 fleet.

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that the training involved rigorous psychological testing and that pilots had to undergo yearly medical exams but added that those did not include psychological tests.

Spohr said Lubitz "was 100 percent fit" to fly.