Lufthansa: Co-Pilot Told Flight School of Depressive Episode

Lufthansa knew six years ago that the co-pilot of the passenger plane that crashed in the French Alps last week had suffered from a “serious depressive episode,” the German airline said Tuesday.

The airline said that as part of its internal research it found emails that Andreas Lubitz sent to the Lufthansa flight school in Bremen when he resumed his training there after an interruption of several months.

In them, he informed the school that he had suffered a “serious depressive episode,” which had since subsided.

The airline said Lubitz subsequently passed all medical checks and that it has provided the documents to prosecutors. It declined to make any further comment.

The revelation that officials Lufthansa had been informed of Lubitz’s psychological problems raises further questions about why he was allowed to become a pilot for its subsidiary, Germanwings, in September 2013.

Authorities say the 27-year-old Lubitz, who in the past had been treated for suicidal tendencies, locked his captain out of the cockpit before deliberately crashing the Airbus 320 into a mountain in the French Alps on March 24. All 150 people aboard Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf were killed.

Earlier Tuesday, Lufthansa said it had set aside $300 million to deal with possible costs from the crash as French aviation investigators said they were examining “systemic weaknesses” like cockpit entry rules and psychological screening procedures that could have led to the Germanwings plane crash — issues that could eventually change worldwide aviation practices.

French aviation agency BEA signaled the latest re-think about airline procedures in the wake of the Germanwings crash, which jolted an aviation industry already reeling after one passenger plane disappeared into an ocean and another was shot out of the sky over war-torn eastern Ukraine.

The goal of the BEA investigation is to make recommendations to aviation authorities, not just in France but anywhere, about what can be done to prevent similar crashes. French prosecutors are carrying out a separate crash probe to pinpoint possible criminal wrongdoing.

The Germanwings crash has already produced some changes in aviation procedures. Europe’s aviation regulator now says all airlines in Europe should require two people in the cockpit at all times during a flight. Many airlines have already imposed the new rule, which has been in place in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, which brings together 191 nations, said state agencies like the BEA must officially determine the causes and contributing factors of crashes and give recommendations on ways to avoid recurrences. ICAO could then bring such recommendations to its member states – possibly leading to changes in international aviation standards.

This article appeared in print on page 8 of the April 1st, 2015 edition of Hamodia.