Alps crash co-pilot Andreas Lubitz hid

Alps crash co-pilot Andreas Lubitz hid the details of an existing illness from his employers, German prosecutors say. They said they found torn-up sick notes in his homes, including one covering the day of the crash. In their report, Duesseldorf prosecutors did not say what illness Mr Lubitz had. But German media have said aviation authority documents suggested he suffered depression and required ongoing assessment. Prosecutors said there was no evidence of a political or religious motive to his actions, and no suicide note was found. Mr Lubitz and 149 passengers and crew died when Germanwings flight 4U 9525 crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday. Data from the plane's voice recorder suggest Mr Lubitz purposely started an eight-minute descent into mountains as the pilot was locked out of the cockpit. Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa, refused to comment on the new information.