Brice Robin, the French prosecutor who is investigating the crash of Germanwings Flight 4U9525, said on Thursday that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the A320 jet into an alpine mountain ridge in France.

Among the evidence that made Robin reach that conclusion was that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 28, a German national, was alone in the cockpit and had locked out the pilot, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Like Us on Facebook

However, while Robin ruled out terrorism, he said "When you are responsible for 150 people, I don't call it a suicide," quotes CNN.

The jet's black box, recovered late Tuesday, was analyzed by French accident probers the next day and reached that conclusion. The voice box recorded screams, apparently of passengers, when they realized the plane was crashing.

Remi Jouty, director of the aviation accident investigation office of France, which is leading the probe, said the black box had recorded voices and other sounds. The names and other personal details of the flight crew have been withheld by Germanwings, the budget carrier of Lufthansa.

The co-pilot's name was provided by the LSC, a flight club where Lubitz is a member. LSC said flying was a youthful dream of Lubitz. The captain had been with Germanwings since 2014, but flew before for Lufthansa and Condor, a German air carrier. He has more than 6,000 flying hours, mostly on Airbus planes, while Lubitz had 630 flight hours and joined the airline in 2013.

Search and rescue operations continued for the second day on Thursday. Chopper flights from Seyne ferried mountain rangers, forensic experts and other crew to recover the bodies and body parts, according to Col. Jean-Marc Menicini, police chief of the region.

He said the top priority is evacuation of the corpses. Robin said the bodies of the victims would not be released until DNA identification work is completed.

TagsGermanwings, plane crash