Update | Flight data from second ‘black box’ shows Germanwings co-pilot deliberately crashed jet

A second ‘black box’ recovered from the Germanwings crash site indicated that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the airplane into the French Alps, local investigators said, with Andreas Lubitz repeatedly accelerating the jet.

France’s air accident investigation agency, BEA, provided the disturbing new details a day after a police officer found the blackened data recorder buried in debris scattered along a mountainside ravine where the plane crashed.

Based on an initial reading of the recorder, the revelation strengthened investigators’ early suspicions that co-pilot Lubitz meant to destroy the Germanwings Airbus A320.

French and German investigators are still trying to figure out why. All 150 people aboard Flight RU 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf were killed in the March 24 crash, which has been a reminder of the trust that passengers place in pilots.

The BEA said the preliminary reading of the data recorder shows that Lubitz used the automatic pilot to put the plane into a descent and then repeatedly during the descent adjusted the automatic pilot to speed up the plane.

The agency says it would continue studying the black box for more complete details of what happened. The Flight Data Recorder records aircraft parameters such as the speed, altitude, and actions of the pilot on the commands.