Trending on Twitter this afternoon is (once again) the hashtag #Germanwings. Recent reports reveal that the co-pilot, who deliberately crashed his Germanwings plane into the French alps killing everyone on board, had “rehearsed” the controlled descent on a previous flight. See below for the latest tweets and reports. More updates to follow. – Tracey Ruff
FROM AFP (UPDATED)

The co-pilot of a Germanwings flight deliberately drove the plane into the French Alps after “rehearsing” the descent on an earlier flight, French civil aviation investigators said on Wednesday.
The BEA crash investigations office said the co-pilot, 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, had practiced the manouevre on a flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona without “noticeable effect” before crashing the plane into the mountains on his return, killing all 150 people on board.
© 1994-2015 Agence France-Presse
FROM AFP (Initial report)
The co-pilot who is believed to have deliberately crashed a Germanwings jet in the French Alps may have “rehearsed” steering the plane into a rapid descent on an earlier flight, German daily Bild reported Wednesday.
Quoting sources close to the French investigating authorities, the newspaper said that the co-pilot, 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, appeared to have tried out a “controlled, minute-long descent for which there was no aeronautical reason” on the earlier outbound flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona.
Investigators had discovered this after a close evaluation of the jet’s black-box flight recorder, Bild said.
The French authorities are scheduled to publish an interim report on their investigation into the crash later on Wednesday.
The Germanwings Airbus 320 was en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf when it crashed in the French Alps on March 24, killing all 150 people on board.
French investigators believe that Lubitz, who had been diagnosed as suicidal in the past, deliberately brought the plane down.
Doctors had recently found no sign that he intended to hurt himself or others, but he was receiving treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists who had signed him off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.
Police found torn-up sick notes during a search of his apartment after the crash.
© 1994-2015 Agence France-Presse
Investigators: #Germanwings co-pilot practiced putting aircraft into controlled descent on flight that preceded the crash of his jetliner.
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 6, 2015
#Germanwings report: co-pilot practised descent on outbound flight before crash http://t.co/z2Rz9M9tHX pic.twitter.com/bpNOH20oHX
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 6, 2015
#Germanwings co-pilot ‘tried out’ descent on previous flight http://t.co/K8YKX3Nu90 pic.twitter.com/86zi6ElRG6
— The Citizen News (@TheCitizen_News) May 6, 2015