The co-pilot of a plane which crashed in the Alps activated the descent button and refused to open the cockpit door to the pilot.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, 28, was alone at the controls of the Germanwings flight and "intentionally" sent the plane into the doomed descent.
He said that the crew member - who won a Federal Aviation Authority award in 2013 - wanted to "destroy the plane".
He said: "We assume the (captain) went to the loo or something. The co-pilot is on his own in charge of the plane, and it is while he is alone that he uses the flight monitoring system which starts the descent of the plane."
The flight monitoring system cannot be accidentally triggered, he added.
"We hear several cries from the captain asking to get in. Through the intercom system he identifies himself - but there is no answer. He knocks on the door and asks for it to be opened - but there is no answer."
The plane ploughed into the side of a mountain at around 430mph, killing all of those on board instantly.
"I think the victims only realised at the last moment because on the recording you only hear the screams literally on the last moments of the recording."
Mr Robin said Mr Lubitz was a German national but does not know his ethnicity or religion.
He said there is nothing to indicate that this was a terrorism-related event. He said he would not speculate on whether the co-pilot had committed suicide.
He said the families are in a "state of shock" and "can't believe what has happened".
Mr Lubitz is understood to have joined the airline in 2013 straight after training.
Breathing could be heard from the cockpit and was normal, which has led investigators to believe he was conscious at the time. Other than that, the cockpit was "silent".
There was no contact made with air traffic control in the final eight minutes of the flight.
Some 500 people are now working on the investigation, which is hampered by the remote location of the crash.
Each body must be removed by helicopter as the mountainside is very steep. The recovery process is expected to take a week.
Relatives of the co-pilot are in France and being kept away from grieving relatives, who are in France near the scene.
Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Germanwings parent company Lufthansa said: "Not in our worst nightmare could we imagine something like this happening."
He added that cockpit personnel are selected carefully and go through rigorous checks.
The principal of Joseph Koenig High School in Haltern, Germany, which lost 16 students and two teachers in the crash, says the state governor called him to say the cause "was without a doubt suicide."
Ulrich Wessel said: "I gave this information to my colleagues immediately, and they were just as stunned as I was.
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Gallery: Alps Plane Crash: The Victims
Maria Radner, Oleg Bryjak and Greig and Carol Friday
Elena Bless, a student from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium
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