Lufthansa says it knew of co-pilot's mental illness

BERLIN 

The co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings plane had informed the company about medical treatment he received for severe depression, airlines officials said Tuesday.

The 27-year-old co-pilot is suspected of deliberately crashing the airplane in southern France last week, killing all 150 people on board.

Germany’s largest airline Lufthansa, which owns low-budget Germanwings, said in a written statement on Tuesday that an internal investigation revealed that Andreas Lubitz had submitted medical documents to its pilot school in 2009 about a “previous episode of severe depression.”

The company claimed last week that Lubitz was “100 percent fit to fly without any restrictions,” but German prosecutors seized documents at the co-pilot’s house showing that he had received psychotherapy for having suicidal tendencies. 

Lufthansa said in a written statement on Tuesday that the internal investigation revealed some documents on the medical condition of the co-pilot, which the company submitted to the Duesseldorf public prosecutor.

“These (documents) also include the email correspondence of the co-pilot with the Flight Training Pilot School," the statement said. "In this correspondence, he informed the Flight Training Pilot School in 2009, in the medical documents he submitted in connection with resuming his flight training, about a previous episode of severe depression." 

Lufthansa’s CEO Carsten Spohr confirmed last week that Lubitz had to interrupt his pilot training in the past, but gave no details on the reasons. He said the co-pilot joined Germanwings in 2013, after successfully completing all tests, including a psychological exam.

The company confirmed on Tuesday a “previous episode of severe depression,” but also said that following his training at the pilot school, Lubitz received a medical certificate confirming his fitness to fly.

The air disaster is one of the most tragic incidents in recent German aviation history and the first deadly crash of a Germanwings plane since the low-budget airline was founded by Lufthansa in 2002.

The crash was also the first on French soil since July 25, 2000, when an Air France Concorde crashed into a hotel in Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, shortly after taking off from Roissy-CDG Airport, killing 13 German passengers and crew members, along with four others on the ground.