Co-Pilot Hid Illness
Andreas Lubitz competing in a Lufthansa marathon in 2013 (Wolfgang Nass/BILD)
[su_right_ad]The Germanwings co-pilot hid an illness from his employer and tore up a doctor’s note urging him to take medical leave.
Police found the medical certificate and other documents during a search Thursday at the Duesseldorf home of Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old Germanwings co-pilot.
The statement by the Duesseldorf prosecutors office said, however, that police found no suicide note or claim of responsibility from the co-pilot, who investigators said deliberately crashed the plane on Tuesday, killing 150 people. Nor did they find evidence of a political or religious background linked to the tragedy.
The statement said police searching Lubitz’s apartment found medical documents “indicating an existing illness and corresponding medical treatment were found.”
“Torn-up current medical certificates — also pertaining to the day of the act — were found, which after preliminary examination, support the assumption that the deceased hid his illness from his employer and his professional circles,” the statement said
The statement did not disclose the nature of the illness, although the German media reported that he may have suffered from depression.[su_fb]
[su_center_ad]
ChrisVosburg March 27th, 2015 at 4:27 pm
Alan, I think you overstate USAToday’s already overstated assessment of what we know and don’t know about the state of Germanwings copilot Lubitz’s health, mental or otherwise.
A note from a Doctor to excuse an employee from a day’s work doesn’t necessarily constitute a document “urging him to take medical leave,” for example, and may be as simple as a patient telling his Doctor he’s a bit tired and could do with a day off– and then deciding against it after a good night’s sleep.
Likewise, the fact that his employer was not made privy to whatever “illness” was treated (coulda been hemorrhoids, for all we know at this point) doesn’t rise to the level of sinister motive imputed by America’s Newspaper (and thank God we only have the one).
Look, something was up with him, sure, and although I often say in the aftermath of such stuff something like “the handwriting was on the wall, but we just couldn’t read it,” we’re not really seeing much of any handwriting yet.
So maybe it’d behoove us all to take a deep breath and back off a bit here.
Tong Chang March 27th, 2015 at 10:09 pm
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Huns_by_Rochegrosse.jpg
dude was robbed of his job
fancypants March 27th, 2015 at 11:19 pm
the c pilot was taking a nap and probably over medicated
oh yea the captain most likely didn’t check the dashboard to see if he was going to be locked out either.
BTW I didn’t hear FN say anything about terrorism when a building in Manhattan exploded with no explanation but that’s ok We are too busy pointing fingers at other countries …..
Barry Shitpeas March 28th, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Really, the saddest thing about this situation is that what he did will be equated with depression. Depression doesn’t drive anyone to this – he must have had some other underlying mental illness to have carried out this heinous act.