Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz feared he was going blind and may have been unfit to fly before he crashed a passenger jet into a French mountainside in March. The doctors didn't report their concerns to Andreas Lubitz's employers, however, because of German patient privacy laws, Marseille Prosecutor Brice Robin told reporters in Paris.
Robin met with families of victims Thursday and updated reporters on the status of the investigation into the March 24 crash, which killed all 150 people aboard. Families are just starting to receive remains of their loved ones and will start holding burials in the coming days and weeks. Robin said the investigation so far "has enabled us to confirm without a shadow of a doubt ...Mr. Andreas Lubitz deliberately destroyed the plane and deliberately killed 150 people, including himself." Investigators say he locked the pilot out of the cockpit and flew the plane into a French mountainside, after having researched suicide methods and cockpit door rules and practiced an unusual descent.
Lubitz had seen seven doctors within the month before the March 24 crash, including three appointments with a psychiatrist, Robin said. Some of the doctors felt Lubitz was psychologically unstable, and some felt he was unfit to fly, but "unfortunately that information was not reported because of medical secrecy requirements," the prosecutor said. Blindness would have ended Lubitz's career as a pilot, but it was unclear Thursday if his fears were based on reality or if they were imagined. Germanwings has said Lubitz passed his medical tests.
Thursday, prosecutors said Lubitz had complained of seeing flashing lights, though there was no "organic" cause of any vision problems. Nevertheless, two weeks before the deadly crash, Lubitz emailed a doctor about having sleepless nights due to worries about his vision, the AP reported. He also reportedly told the doctor he doubled his dose of antidepressants in an attempt to cope with the lack of sleep.
