DUSSELDORF: The Germanwings co-pilot who crashed his Airbus into the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, hid a serious illness from the airline, prosecutors said on Friday amid reports he was severely depressed.
The black box voice recorder indicates that Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked his captain out of the cockpit on Tuesday and deliberately flew Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside, French officials say, in what appears to have been a case of suicide and mass murder.
German prosecutors revealed that searches of Lubitz’s homes netted “medical documents that suggest an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment”, including “torn-up and current sick leave notes, among them one covering the day of the crash”. They did not specify the illness.
Know more: Germanwings co-pilot had serious depressive episode
But Bild daily earlier reported that Lubitz sought psychiatric help for “a bout of serious depression” in 2009 and was still getting assistance from doctors, quoting documents from Germany’s air transport regulator.
The newspaper also cited security sources as saying that Lubitz and his girlfriend were having a “serious crisis in their relationship” that left him distraught.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that Lubitz had suspended his pilot training, which began in 2008, “for a certain period”, before restarting and qualifying for the Airbus A320 in 2013.
According to Bild, those setbacks were linked to “depression and anxiety attacks”.
Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2015
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