Doctor urged psychiatric hospital for Germanwings pilot before crash

Andreas Lubitz runs the Airportrace half marathon in Hamburg in this September 13, 2009 file photo. EUTERS/Foto-Team-Mueller


PARIS A doctor recommended that the German pilot who crashed a Germanwings jet into the Alps last year should be treated in a psychiatric hospital two weeks before the disaster, French investigators said on Sunday.


Prosecutors believe co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had a history of severe depression, barricaded himself into the cockpit and deliberately propelled his Airbus jet into a mountainside on March 2, killing all 150 people on board.


France's BEA air accident investigation office said in its final report that Lubitz had begun to show symptoms that could be consistent with a psychotic depressive episode in December 2014 and consulted several doctors over the following months, none of whom alerted aviation authorities or his employer.


(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Andrew Heavens)


The Most Influential Scientific Minds
Using citation analysis to identify authors whose papers wield outsized influence

• Global Innovation in 2015
• The Year in Biopharma