Report: Germanwings co-pilot practiced controlled descent on earlier flight

The co-pilot suspected of purposely crashing his Germanwings plane into the French Alps March 24, killing everyone on board, practiced a controlled descent on a flight earlier that day, the German newspaper Bild reports.

Sources close to France's BEA crash investigation agency told the paper that on Wednesday, BEA plans to publish an interim report that states the incident lasted a few minutes during a flight from Dusseldorf to Barcelona. The source said there was "no aeronautical justification" for this action, Reuters reports.

UPDATE: France's BEA confirmed Bild's report, elaborating in its preliminary report that "several altitude selections towards 100 ft. were recorded during descent on the flight that preceded the accident flight, while the co-pilot was alone in the cockpit."

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