Victim’s father urges focus on pilots’ welfare
Deliberate crash last week tied to health problems.
— The SISTERON, FRANCE father of one of the victims of last week’s plane crash in the French Alps called Saturday for airlines to take greater care over pilots’ welfare.
French prosecutors have said they believe German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately slammed the Germanwings flight into a mountain. Authorities have since said Lubitz hid evidence of an illness from his employers — including a sick note for the day of the crash.
“I believe the airlines should be more transparent and our (inest pilots looked after properly,” said Philip Bramley, from Hull in northern England. “We put our lives and our children’s lives in their hands.”
His 28-year-old son, Paul Bramley, was one of 150 people killed in Tuesday’s disaster.
Speaking near the site of the crash, Philip Bramley said Lubitz’s motive was irrelevant.
“What is relevant is that it should never happen again; my son and everyone on that plane should not be forgotten, ever,” he said.
German prosecutors, who have been trying to determine what caused Lubitz to take such a devastating action, met with their French counterparts Saturday to discuss preliminary (indings.
Duesseldorf prosecutors say Lubitz hid evidence of an illness from his employers — including a torn-up doctor’s note that would have kept him off work the day authorities say he crashed Flight 9525.
Searches conducted at Lubitz’s homes in Duesseldorf and in the town of Montabaur turned up documents pointing to “an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment,” but no suicide note was found, said Ralf Herrenbrueck, of the Duesseldorf prosecutors’ of(ice.
Prosecutors didn’t specify what illness Lubitz may have been suffering from. German media reported that the 27-yearold had suffered from depression. The New York Times and Germany’s Bild am Sonntag weekly also reported that Lubitz had eye problems.
Duesseldorf University Hospital said Friday that Lubitz had been a patient there over the past two months and last went in for a “diagnostic evaluation” on March 10. It declined to provide details.