LE BOURGET, France—Aviation agencies around the world should draw up new rules requiring medical workers to warn authorities when a pilot’s mental health could threaten public safety, French investigators recommended Sunday after a yearlong probe into the Germanwings plane crash.
The French investigation found that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had been treated for depression in the past, had consulted with dozens of doctors in the weeks before he deliberately crashed a jet into the French Alps on March 24, 2015, killing all 150 people on board.
But none of the doctors told authorities of any concerns about Lubitz’s mental health, France’s BEA air accident investigation agency said, including one who referred Lubitz to a psychiatric clinic just two weeks before the crash.
“Experts found that the symptoms (two weeks before the crash) could be compatible with a psychotic episode,” said Arnaud Desjardin, leader of the BEA investigation. This information “was not delivered to Germanwings.”
Because Lubitz didn’t inform anyone of his doctors’ warnings, the BEA said in a statement, “no action could have been taken by the authorities or his employer to prevent him from flying.”
The agency also said Lubitz was using antidepressants at the time of the crash. It said traces of anti-depressive medications Citalopram and Mirtazapine were found in Lubitz’s remains, as well as the sleeping medication Zopiclone.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine notes on its entry for Citalopram that children and young adults who take the drug can become suicidal “especially at the beginning of your treatment and any time that your dose is increased or decreased.”
Lubitz was 27 when he crashed the plane.
Germanwings and its parent company Lufthansa have strongly denied any wrongdoing in the crash, insisting that Lubitz was certified fit to fly.
But relatives of those killed have pointed to a string of people they say could have raised the alarm and stopped Lubitz, going back to the days when he began training as a pilot in 2008.
