Lufthansa Admits to Knowing About Andreas Lubitz's Past Depression
Lufthansa announced Tuesday that Andreas Lubitz—the co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps last week, killing all 150 people on board—had previously informed the airline of a "serious depressive episode."
According to documents turned over to German prosecutors, Lubitz had told Lufthansa in 2009—in emails with the airline's flight school to resume pilot training—that he had suffered from depressive episodes. Those emails, the New York Times reports, included medical records.
The company's announcement today appears to square with a previous veiled statement made by the airline's CEO Carsten Spohr at a press conference last week, in which he alluded to an interruption in Lubitz's pilot training for unspecified reasons. Lufthansa operates Germanwings as a budget airline.
[Image via Getty]