Report: Lufthansa Knew Of Pilot’s Illness

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First officer Andreas Lubitz, who was at the controls of the Germanwings A320 that crashed last week, had told his employers at Lufthansa in 2009 that he had suffered from severe depression, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Lufthansa officials said they had searched their records and found an email from Lubitz to its flight-training school, seeking to rejoin its training program after he had been absent for several months. Lubtiz’s email included medical documents that described a “previous episode of severe depression,” the Times said. Last week, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr had said the airline had found Lubitz to be “100 percent flightworthy without any limitations.”

Germanwings pilot Frank Woiton told German broadcaster WDR on Saturday he had flown with Lubitz several weeks ago and had formed “a quiet, normal notion of him.” Woiton added that Lufthansa has an “unfit to fly rule” that allows pilots to take time off if they don’t feel physically or emotionally well enough to do their job. Lufthansa is the parent company of the budget Germanwings airline. The A320 crashed in the French Alps on March 25, killing all 150 people on board.

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