In an interview with Germany's Bild newspaper, she recalled a comment Andreas Lubitz made last year.

"One day I'm going to do something that will change the whole system, and everyone will know my name and remember," he told her.

Flight 4U 9525 crashed on Tuesday.

The woman, a 26-year-old flight attendant who flew with Lubitz for five months last year, was "very shocked" when she heard the news, the paper says.

She is referred to only as Maria W.

If Lubitz deliberately brought down the plane, "it is because he understood that because of his health problems, his big dream of a job at Lufthansa, as captain and as a long-haul pilot was practically impossible," she told Bild.

Meanwhile, German newspaper Die Welt said that investigators had found evidence of a serious "psychosomatic illness", and that Lubitz had been "treated by several neurologists and psychiatrists".

Several medicines used to treat mental illnesses were found at his home, but there were no signs of drug or alcohol addiction, the newspaper, citing an unnamed investigator, said.

Separately, the New York Times, citing officials, reported that Lubitz had sought treatment for eye problems.

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French investigator Jean-Pierre Michel also told the AFP news agency that the pilot's personality was "a serious lead [in the investigation] but... can't be the only one".

"We're going to try to understand what in his life could have left him to carry out the act," Mr Michel said, adding that investigators had not discovered any "particular element" so far.

The black box voice recorder indicates that Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit on Tuesday and crashed the plane into a mountainside in what appears to have been a suicide and mass killing.

German prosecutors say they found medical documents at Lubitz's house suggesting an existing illness and evidence of medical treatment. They found torn-up sick notes, one of them for the day of the crash.

They say he seems to have concealed his illness from his employers.

His former girlfriend told Bild they separated, "because it became increasingly clear that he had a problem".

 

(BBC)