Germanwings Co-Pilot May Have Had Hidden Illness; No Suicide Note Found
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Adam Berry/Getty Images(DÜSSELDORF, Germany) — There are indications that the co-pilot of the Germanwings aircraft that crashed into the French Alps Tuesday hid an illness from his employers, German prosecutors said in a statement Friday morning.
The disclosure of torn medical documents at the co-pilot’s home came shortly before Germanwings’ parent company, Lufthansa, announced that it would be changing company policy to require two “authorized persons” remain in the cockpit at all times during the flight, in light of the finding that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz apparently stopped the captain from re-entering the cockpit and forced the plane to crash.
In addition to the findings suggesting Lubitz was hiding an illness, a search of his apartment in Dusseldorf yielded no suicide note and the city’s prosecutor announced that there is no evidence that political or religious factors were involved in the crash.
During a press conference Thursday, the Lufthansa CEO said that the 27-year-old co-pilot had undergone a medical examination that included a psychological evaluation before being hired in 2013 but, unlike physicals, mental evaluations are not required annually.
The Germanwings plane crashed Tuesday in the Alps in southern France with 150 people on board, including two babies, the airline said. French President Francois Hollande said there were “apparently no survivors.”
Brice Robin, public prosecutor of Marseille, France, said in a news conference Thursday that Lubitz appeared to want to “destroy the plane,” purposefully locking the captain out of the Airbus A320’s cockpit and accelerating the descent manually.
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