A pilot of the plane that crashed in the French Alps killing all 150 on board left the cockpit before the fateful descent and was left trying to smash the door down but still failed to get back in, a report said Wednesday.
The New York Times cited a senior military official involved in the investigation who had heard the cockpit voice recorder.
The official was quoted as saying that there was a 'very smooth, very cool' conversation between the two pilots during the early part of the doomed flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf on Tuesday.
Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter, the investigator said.
"The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer," the investigator told the newspaper. "And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.
"You can hear he is trying to smash the door down."
The official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is continuing, told The New York Times: "We don't know yet the reason why one of the guys went out.
"But what is sure is that at the very end of the flight, the other pilot is alone, and does not open the door."
Football team escapes death... 16 students do not
A Swedish third division football team booked on the doomed Germanwings flight that crashed Tuesday in the French Alps escaped death by changing flights at the last minute, the team said.
The Dalkurd FF team from Borlaenge, in central Sweden, was booked to fly home to Sweden on the budget carrier after a trip to Catalonia.
The Airbus A320, carrying 144 passengers and six crew from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, crashed in mountainous terrain in southeastern France killing all 150 on board.
Part of the vertical stabilizer of the Germanwings Airbus A320 at the crash site in the French Alps above the southeastern town of Seyne. (AFP)
But upon arrival at Barcelona airport, the team decided the layover in Duesseldorf would be too long so they re-booked themselves onto three other flights flying via Zurich and Munich.
"To all those who have tried to contact us in the past few hours we are home and we are fine. It was another plane. May they rest in peace," goalkeeper Frank Pettersson wrote on Twitter.
Sporting director Adil Kizil told daily Aftonbladet the team had a very close call.
"We were supposed to be on that plane."
Search and rescue personnel being lowered close to the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320 that crashed in the French Alps above the southeastern town of Seyne. (AFP)
"There were four planes that left around the same time and that flew north over the Alps. Four planes and we had players on three of them. You can say we were very, very lucky," he said.
Dalkurd FF is the Kurdish community's club in Sweden, and is followed by supporters from the Kurdish diaspora around the world.
The dead are believed to include Germans, Spaniards, probably Turks, and at least one Belgian national.
Students, teachers weep for classmates on doomed plane
Students and teachers at a small-town German high school broke down in tears once they realised that 16 classmates and two teachers were onboard an ill-fated Germanwings airplane that crashed in France on Tuesday on a flight to Duesseldorf.
The 10th grade students from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school were on their way home after a week-long Spanish exchange programme at the Institut Giola in Llinars del Vallèsnear Barcelona. It was a reciprocal visit after 12 Spanish students had spent a week at their school in December.
Students gather at a memorial of flowers and candles in front of the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium secondary school in Haltern am See, western Germany. (AFP)
"It was a Spanish language exchange programme and they were flying home after having what was probably the most wonderful time of their lives," said Sylvia Loehrmann, the education minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
"It's so tragic, so sad, so unfathomable," she said. Most of the students were about 15 years old.
The Airbus operated by Lufthansa's Germanwings budget airline crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 on board.
Germanwings confirmed its flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorfwent down with 144 passengers and six crew.
Haltern am See mayor Bodo Klimpel said that word spread quickly through the school about reports that a plane from Barcelona had gone missing and the students began researching on their own to try to find out more about the plane's fate.
"And then when the plane didn't land and they were unable to make contact with their friends and classmates by cell phone, that's when they assumed the worst had happened," said the mayor, who was also fighting off tears at a news conference.
The students were informed that there was a sufficient probability that the plane would not be landing in Duesseldorf,"Klimpel said. "Classes were then called off."
Condolence books are seen in a sports hall in the southeastern French town of Seyne, near the site where a German Airbus A320 of the low-cost carrier Germanwings crashed, killing all 150 people on board. (AFP)
The town lies about 30 km (20 miles) to the north of Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen - homes of two major German soccer clubs and former mining towns. It is 50 km (30 miles) north of Duesseldorf.
Haltern am See's history dates back to 1289 and perhaps its most famous son in soccer player Christoph Metzelder, a former Germany defender who also played for Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid.
Germany defender Benedikt Hoewedes, who plays for Gelsenkirchen's Schalke 04 club, is also from Haltern am See.
The nearby Sixtus church and another local church opened their doors for students, teachers and local residents to mourn and flags in the town of 37,000 that lies just north of the Ruhr River Valley industrial area were lowered to half-mast.
The mayor of the Spanish town Llinars del Valles, MartiPujol, told Reuters that these kinds of exchanges had been organised for several years with German towns including in the Duesseldorf, Cologne and Hamburg areas. Spanish children had spent a week in December in Haltern am See with German families.
"The whole village is distraught, Pujol said of his town with 9,000 residents. "The families knew each other... The parents had been to see them off at 6 this morning."