BEA probe calls for ‘clear rules’ on pilots
Print Edition
FRENCH investigators probing the Germanwings plane crash yesterday called for clearer rules on the lifting of medical confidentiality if pilots show signs of psychological problems.
The plane was deliberately flown into a French mountainside by its co-pilot Andreas Lubitz in March last year in a tragedy that cost 150 lives and raised unprecedented aviation safety questions.
In their conclusions on the disaster, civil aviation experts from France’s BEA crash investigation agency also recommended more stringent medical checks for pilots.
Lubitz, 27, who was suffering from depression, was allowed to continue flying despite having been seen by doctors dozens of times in the years preceding the crash.
“Clearer rules are needed to establish when it is necessary to lift medical confidentiality,” investigator Arnaud Desjardin said at the launch of the BEA report.
“Several doctors in private practice had the information that Lubitz was ill,” he said. “This information was not passed on to aeronautical authorities or to his employer Germanwings.”
The report also recommended regular analysis of pilots to check for “psychological or psychiatric problems.”
In the fateful flight on March 24, 2015, Lubitz locked the pilot out of the cockpit of the Airbus 320 operated by Germanwings, the budget airline subsidiary of Lufthansa.
Ten minutes later, the jet ploughed into an Alpine mountain, killing all 144 passengers and six crew.
Despite being seen so many times by doctors, under German law none was able to alert his employers to his state of mind and he was allowed to continue flying.
On the black box voice recorder recovered at the crash scene in southeastern France, all that is heard from Lubitz is regular breathing. He gave no words of explanation for his murderous course of action.
Medical testing for pilots
The European Aviation Safety Agency has already recommended stepping up medical testing for pilots.
BEA chief Remi Jouty said the French investigation had sought to identify the “systematic failures which led to this accident.”
The investigators also looked at the “balance between medical secrecy and flight security.”
As a result of the crash, European aviation authorities have already recommended making it compulsory to have two people in the cockpit at any time during flights.
Some countries are opposed to the measure, however, with Germany’s pilots’ union believing it poses “risks that outweigh any supposed improvements in security.”
The BEA did not recommend making any changes to the current system of flight deck door locks, which can only be opened by the pilot in the cockpit.
A German lawyer for some of the families of Germanwings victims said this month they intended to sue the training school that Lubitz attended in Arizona, United States.
“The co-pilot interrupted his training there for a while due to psychological problems. He shouldn’t have been allowed to resume his training,” lawyer Christof Wellens said.
Lufthansa has paid 50,000 euros (US$56,000) per victim in an initial payment and offered an additional 25,000 euros to each of the families plus 10,000 euros to each immediate relative.
“The severity of his (Lubitiz’s) mental health condition raises very serious questions about how he was assessed and how the fitness of commercial airline pilots should be assessed,” aviation lawyer Jim Morris, who is representing the British families involved, told Britain’s Sunday Mirror newspaper yesterday.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
