ERIN BURNETT
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, breaking news. Investigators scouring the home of Flight 9525 co-pilot Andreas Lubitz. They are searching for evidence of a motive. Why did Lubitz deliberately crashed a commercial jet in the Alps killing 149 innocent people?
Also breaking at this hour, CNN learning Lubitz reprogrammed the plane's autopilot in flight changing the setting from cruising altitude, 38,000 feet to just 100 feet. A premeditated plan condemning everyone on board. This is according to new data from flight radar 24.
And earlier today at one of the most shocking press conferences in memory, prosecutors laid out an incredible sequence of events that they said led to murder. They described the sounds on the cockpit voice recorder including the pilot pounding on the cockpit door yelling to get back inside. Then the passengers' screams that filled the plane as 149 people realized what was happening. During it all, the prosecutor says the co-pilot breathed evenly not responding. The co-pilot no one suspected. The airline CEO saying that this co- pilot's record gave absolutely no hint of such horror.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARSTEN SPOHR, CEO, LUFTHANSA (through a translator):
He was 100 percent fit to fly without any restrictions. His flight performance was perfect. There was nothing to worry about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT:
Our reporters are covering this story tonight from every angle. Fred Pleitgen is in Germany with an exclusive interview with the Lufthansa's CEO. Diana Magnay has new details on the co- pilot. Stephanie Elam is in Phoenix where Lubitz's trained.
And we begin with Rene Marsh with the breaking news on how that plane's auto-pilot was reprogrammed. Rene, you broke this news. And what are you learning about what happened on that auto-pilot?
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT:
Well, Erin tonight data streamed from Flight 9525 we know suggests that someone manually reprogrammed auto-pilot to bring the jetliner down. Now, flight trafficking website, flight radar 24 tells me they've analyzed data from the plane's transponder and they have determined that someone reprogrammed the auto-pilot from 38,000 feet to just 100 feet. Essentially telling the plane to go down as it continued on a path straight towards the French Alps. As one pilot told me today this manual reprogramming of the autopilot indicates intent to crash this aircraft because 100 feet is below the level of terrain. Erin.
BURNETT:
Just horrific. Thank you very much, Rene.
And tonight German officials are trying everything they can to find out why. Going into the co-pilot's background as they are searching for a reason that could explain why the 28-year-old co-pilot intentionally crashed the plane that would kill everyone on board.
Diana Magnay is OUTFRONT in Montabaur, Germany where the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz lived. Diana, we saw investigators leaving with boxes of evidence from Lubitz's home. What did you see? What are they looking for?
DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT:
That's right. Investigators at his flat in Duesseldorf and at his parents' house down the road behind me where he grew up and where he still lived from time to time hauling out boxes, anything that they can sift from, his computer records, for example, that could give some kind of indication as to why he did what he did and what exactly his psychological state was that made him bring that plane down. Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAGNAY (voice-over):
What we know of the life of Andreas Lubitz gives almost no hint of the man who would deliberately crash a jet liner into a mountainside.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN:
If one person kills himself and also 149 people, in other words should not be used suicide.
MAGNAY:
He seemed to live a normal life. He was accepted into Lufthansa's pilot training program in 2008 training in Germany and Phoenix, Arizona. He joins Germanwings in September, 2013. At the time of the crash 630 hours of flight to experience. Only about 100 in an A-320, the plane he crashed. Lufthansa there says, his flight performance was perfect. There is one flag on his resume.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN:
There was an interruption with regard to the training.
MAGNAY:
That interruption is said to have lasted several months. Something Lufthansa says it's not uncommon. Police removed evidence from the home where Lubitz's lived with his parents in the German town of Montabaur. No one was willing to speak. But at the nearby flight club where Lubitz was a member, those who knew him describe a happy young man who loved to fly.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN:
He was a lot of fun even though he was perhaps sometimes a bit quiet. He was just another boy like so many others here.
MAGNAY:
Lubitz's portrait on social media is unremarkable. He ran a Lufthansa half-marathon. He liked night clubs and popular music. There are reports he may have had a girlfriend. But there is one vital piece of information about Andreas Lubitz that we do not know.
SPHOR:
We can only speculate about motives. We have no findings at all with regard to why the co-pilot did that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MAGNAY:
And Erin, the Lubitz's parents traveled must say alongside other grieving families this morning thinking they were going to mourn the loss of their son and then these revelations. You can only imagine what they must be feeling now also alongside the grieving of everyone else -- Erin.
BURNETT:
Just impossible to imagine how they must feel. Thank you very much, Diana.
