German prosecutors said the Germanwings co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing the plane, had an existing medical condition he hid from his employers and for which he possessed a note for sick leave.
They said on Friday in Paris, France that tendering the note would have allowed him to take sick leave the day of the flight.
The prosecutors in Dusseldorf, the hometown of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 27, said there was yet no evidence of a suicide note or a message claiming intentions or responsibility.
They also said police found nothing indicating a strong political or religious background.
The prosecutor said: “Certificates of illness were found, some of them torn up for the current time, including the day of the offence.
“This supports the preliminary suspicion that the deceased concealed his illness from his employer and his work associates.”
Carsten Spohr, Chief Executive of Lufthansa, the Germanwings parent company, said on Thursday that Lubitz had interrupted his aviation training in 2009, with no further explanation.
Meanwhile, memorial services were conducted on Friday for a group of German students killed as they were returning from an exchange programme in Spain.
German President, Joachim Gauck, told grieving students from the Joseph Koenig Gymnasium and relatives of the victims at a memorial service that there was “a circle of compassion and shared mourning” for the victims.
dpa/NAN.