Alps crash co-pilot ‘hid illness’

Semiu Salami
Semiu Salami

Alps crash co-pilot Andreas Lubitz hid the details of an existing illness from his employers, German prosecutors say.

They said they had found torn-up sick notes in his homes, including one covering the day of the crash.

In their report, prosecutors in the city of Duesseldorf did not disclose the nature of Lubitz’s illness.

German media have said internal aviation authority documents suggest he suffered depression and required ongoing assessment.

Prosecutors said there was no evidence of a political or religious motive for his actions and no suicide note was found.

Lubitz and 149 passengers and crew died when Germanwings flight 4U 9525 crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday.

Data from the plane’s voice recorder suggest Lubitz purposely started an eight-minute descent into the mountains while the pilot was locked out of the cockpit.

In their statement (in German), the prosecutors said they had seized medical documents from Lubitz’s two residences – his Duesseldorf flat and his parents’ home north of Frankfurt – which indicated an “existing illness and appropriate medical treatment”.

The “fact that, among the documents found, there were sick notes – torn-up, current and for the day of the crash – leads to the provisional assessment that the deceased was hiding his illness from his employer”, the report states.

Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa, refused to comment on the new information, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Internal documents quoted by Bild and German broadcaster ARD say a note on Mr Lubitz’s aviation authority file recommended regular psychological assessment.

Lubitz’s employers have confirmed his training was interrupted for several months six years ago, without explaining why.

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