Mexico City - Mexico's General Direction of Civil Aviation ordered Mexican airlines to adopt the two-person cockpit rule after last week's Germanwings incident, in which the co-pilot locked the captain out and appears to have set the controls to crash into a mountain, killing all 150 people on board.

"When the pilot or the co-pilot leave the cockpit, a flight attendant will replace him, guaranteeing that the door can be opened at any time," Gilberto López Meyer, general director of Civil Aviation, said.

"This will apply to all national and international flights of Mexican airlines," he added.

Accompanied by Claudio Arellano, director of Mexican Airspace Navigation Services, and Alejandro Argudín, director of Mexico City International Airport, López explained that pilots are submitted to medical and psychological tests every six months.