The co-pilot Andreas Lubitz who steered an airline with 150 people on board into a French mountainside had been dumped by his girlfriend the day prior to the crash and was undergoing treatment for depression from a doctor, according to reports Saturday.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Lubitz was under the care of a neuropsychologist for depression. The doctor gave Lubitz a note excusing him from the work the day of the crash but he ignored the advice and reported to work, the paper said, citing a person familiar with the investigation.
Lubitz, 27, and his girlfriend of seven years shared an apartment in Dusseldorf and planned to get married in 2016, a French TV station said, according to the New York Post. But the day before the crash, the fiancée ended the relationship, Channel iTELE claimed.
Authorities stunned the world Thursday when they blamed Lubitz for Tuesday’s crash, saying he locked the captain of the Germanwings jet out of the cabin and then rigged the auto-pilot to descend to its lowest setting, 100 feet. All on board were killed when the plane crashed into the French Alps at 6,000 feet. The aircraft had started its descent at 38,000 feet and the pilot was said to have used an axe to try and get back into the cabin.
The Post said the news about a break-up one day before the tragedy, while offering a tantalizing new clue to crash investigators, came as a German newspaper quoted another Lubitz ex-girlfriend, recalling that within the past year, he had promised her that one day he’d “make everyone remember him.”
Bild identified the former lover as “Maria, 26,” who also said Lubitz would wake up in the middle of the night screaming, “We’re crashing!”
“When I heard about the crash, one thing that he said kept going through my head: ‘One day I’m going to do something that will change the whole system, and everyone will know my name and remember it.’ ” the woman told the paper, according to the Post.
“I didn’t know what he meant, but now it makes sense,” the woman added.
German prosecutors reported Friday that Lubitz shredded the doctor’s notes for the day of the crash and other days, supporting their assessment that Lubitz hid his “medical illness” from his employer and colleagues. They refused to say if that illness was depression.
The Journal said that while Lubitz had sought to conceal his mental illness, there was no evidence that the fear of losing his medical classification as being fit to fly triggered his actions, though “this would be a plausible explanation,” the person said.
His pilot's license is up for renewal in July and would be in jeopardy if he was diagnosed as mentally ill.
The person told the Journal there was no evidence Lubitz was taking “mind-altering” medication that could have affected his judgment in the cockpit.
“When someone makes the same decision five or six times all leading toward one specific end you have to assume they are acting intentionally,” the person told the paper, alluding to Mr. Lubitz’s lack of reaction when urged by the pilot to open the locked cockpit door. Prosecutors said the cockpit voice recorder showed Lubitz breathing normally in the last moments of the flight, even as the pilot tried to get back into the cockpit and passengers screamed for their lives.
The Journal quoted a Lufthansa spokesman as saying: “All we know was that he had a clean background.”
University Hospital Dusseldorf admitted Friday Lubitz was a patient at the hospital in February and most recently on March 10. But the hospital dismissed as "incorrect" media reports that it was for depression. The facility refused to say what Lubitz was being treated for, citing patient confidentiality.
Prosecutors in Germany found the doctor's note for the day of the crash, and other medical papers in searches at the home of his parents in Western Germany and at the Dusseldorf apartment. The evidence could provide clues as to why he apparently deliberately crashed the Airbus A320 into the French Alps Tuesday morning, killing all 150 people on board.
Dusseldorf prosecutor Christoph Kumpa said the doctor's note for the day of the crash indicated the co-pilot "was declared by a medical doctor unfit to work."
Bild on Friday said Lubitz had been designated as "not suitable for flying" by his instructors at Lufthansa's training school in Arizona around the time that he halted his pursuit of a pilot's license in 2009.
The tabloid said Lubitz spent 18 months receiving psychiatric treatment, was diagnosed with a "severe depressive episode," and received what it called a "special regular medical examination."
France's i-TELE also reported Saturday that Lubitz frequented a gliding club near the crash site as a child with his parents, according to a member of the club.
Francis Kefer, a member of the club in the town of Sisteron told the station the Lubitz' family and other members of the gliding club in his home town of Montabaur, Germany, came to the region regularly between 1996 and 2003.
The Aero-club de Sisteron glider airfield is about 30 miles away from the crash site near the remote Alpine village of Seyne.
The area, with its numerous peaks and valleys and stunning panoramas, is popular with glider pilots. In the final moments of the Germanwings flight, Lubitz overflew the major turning points for gliders in the region, flying from one peak to another, according to local glider pilots.
A special Mass was being held Saturday in the nearby town of Digne-les-Bains to honor the victims and support their families.
Bishop Jean-Philippe Nault led the Mass, attended by about 200 people from the surrounding region, deeply shaken by the crash. It was the deadliest crash on French soil in decades.
The plane shattered into thousands of pieces, and police are toiling to retrieve the remains of the victims and the aircraft from a hard-to-reach Alpine valley.
Neighbors described a man whose physical health was superb and road race records show Lubitz took part in several long-distance runs.
Prosecutors said there was no indication of any political or religious motivation for Lubitz's actions on the Barcelona-Dusseldorf flight.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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