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German prosecutors say the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane who crashed the aircraft into the French Alps on March 24 apparently used his tablet computer to search the Internet for ways to commit suicide and for the safety features of cockpit doors. Separately, French prosecutors say the second black box of Flight 4U 9525 has been recovered.


The Internet searches covered the dates March 16 to March 23. One search was related to "medical treatment ... and the possibilities of [committing] suicide," German prosecutors 

: "On at least one day, the person also spent several minutes trying out search terms for cockpit doors and their security protection."


Investigators say they believe co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 27, deliberately crashed Flight 4U 9525 into the French Alps, killing himself and 149 others. They came to that conclusion after the recovery last week of the flight's voice recorder near the scene of the crash.

On Thursday, French prosecutors said they had recovered the aircraft's second black box — the data recorder.

Together, the two black boxes — the voice recorder and the data recorder — will give investigators more insight into what happened inside the cockpit of the plane that was flying from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, Germany.

At a news conference, French prosecutor Brice Robin said more than 2,800 fragments had been recovered by teams on the ground. And, he said, 158 DNA profiles had been isolated by the laboratory.

"That doesn't mean that we've identified the 150 victims," Robin said.


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Krishnadev Calamur

Author

The plane's voice recorder was recovered last week near the scene of the crash. From it, investigators were able to determine that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane.

Germanwings crash: 2nd black box found, French prosecutor says

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