Doc Urged Psychiatric Hospital for Germanwings Pilot Before Crash

Two weeks before the disaster a doctor recommended that Lubitz be treated at a psychiatric hospital.

Andreas Lubitz, co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps. (Photo Courtesy: Lubitz’s Facebook profile)

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.

Ground search of the Germanwings crash site. (Photo: PTI)

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.

Also read: Germanwings Co-pilot Researched Suicide: Investigators