BERLIN, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The co-pilot of crashed Germanwings flight 4U9525 searched the Internet for ways to commit suicide and security measures of cockpit doors mere days before the crash happened, said a Duesseldorf prosecutor on Thursday.
Investigators found a tablet that was used by the co-pilot at his home in Duesseldorf, said Ralf Herrenbrueck, the chief prosecutor, in a statement.
According to the tablet's browsing history, the co-pilot searched information online between March 16 and March 23 about medical treatment and ways to carry out suicide. His search for cockpit doors and their security measures lasted for several minutes on at least one of those days.
The prosecutor confirmed earlier this week that the co-pilot had undergone psychotherapy treatment because of suicide risk several years before, before he received his pilot certificate.
Germanwings' parent company Lufthansa disclosed later that the co-pilot had informed his aviation training school in 2009 about "a previous episode of severe depression."
According to the airline, the co-pilot had interrupted his pilot training at the school for several months, but received thereafter the medical certificate confirming his fitness to fly.
The co-pilot, identified by French prosecutor as Andreas Lubitz, was believed to have deliberately crashed an A320 plane in the southern French Alps when en route from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany on March 24, killing himself and 149 other people on board. No one survived the crash.
Herrenbrueck said there were currently a large number of documents and files still to be evaluated and as such, further results of the investigation would not be released for a few days yet.
