The latest revelation surrounding last week's Germanwings tragedy has come to light today, following a task force set up by Germany's transport Minister for pilots to review health and safety procedures. 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, who locked his captain out of their Airbus A320 cockpit before deliberately steering Flight 9525 into the French Alps, reportedly lied to his doctors by informing them that he was on sick leave.
Lubitz allegedly "concealed from doctors the fact he was still piloting commercial planes after they prescribed powerful medication making him unfit to fly and whose side effects include drowsiness and suicidal tendencies", reported Bild, the German daily.
According to German reports, as well as pursuing treatment for his alleged vision insufficiencies, Lubitz admitted to being prescribed medication for depression, anxiety disorders, and panic attacks, his treatment involving a tranquilliser named Lorazepam - commonly known by its brand name Ativan - that is so intense that patients are warned not to drive a car, let alone pilot a commercial aircraft, the Daily Mail reported. Today's breaking update has been released a day after Germanwings' parent company, Lufthansa, established that, on the resumption of the co-pilot's training in 2009, the flight school received his medical documents confirming Lubitz's "previous episode of severe depression.
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With medical experts certifying that the side effects of Lubitz's treatment included an increased risk of self-harm and suicidal inclinations, as well as neurologists and psychiatrists revealing that they had announced him off sick on various occasions - including the day of the crash, said German reports - feelings of bewilderment as to why on earth someone did not stop this man are inevitable.
Yet, had the troubled Germanwings co-pilot been truthful with his doctors, and admitted that he was still flying commercial airliners, help would have surely recommenced: an understandable breach of doctoral patient confidentiality would have occurred, and his employer would have been enlightened to the imminent danger.
Investigators are still trying to comprehend exactly how and why this tragedy occurred, said the German Daily; yet why Lubitz would deliberately commandeer Flight 9525, and mercilessly take the lives of 150 innocent people still remains - and I fear - will remain, an unfathomable tragedy for years to come.
