Lufthansa likely to face corporate manslaughter charges over Germanwings crash

London, April 13: Lufthansa, the largest airline in Europe and parent company of Germanwings, is likely to face corporate manslaughter charges for allowing co-pilot Andreas Lubitz to fly after he suffered a bout of depression, media reported on Monday.

Lubitz was recommended to go for psychological treatment even though he was deemed fit to fly, The Daily Mail reported.

Recordings from the flight data recorder suggest co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit before 'deliberately' crashing the Airbua 320.

According to recordings, it is believed that 27-year-old co-pilot locked his captain out of the cockpit before deliberately crashing the plane in a remote region of the French Alps en route to Dusseldorf from Barcelona in March. All 150 people on board were killed in the crash.

It is also believed that Lubitz may have added a chemical to Captain Patrick Sodenheimer's coffee to remove him from the flight deck.

Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper quoted the Federal Aviation Office as saying that it wasn't informed about Lubitz's previous depression before the March 24 crash of Flight 9525.

Lufthansa has said Lubitz informed its flight school when he returned from a several-month break in pilot training in 2009 that he had experienced an episode of 'severe depression.' It has said he subsequently passed all medical tests.

OneIndia News