Crash French Alps: Lufthansa knew that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had suffered severe depression

Lufthansa now says that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who crashed a plane in the French Alps last week – killing 150 people – told its flight training school in 2009 that he had gone through a period of severe depression.

The airline previously said it knew of no reason why the Germanwings co-pilot might deliberately crash a plane.

The revelation follows confirmation that Lubitz had suicidal tendencies years before obtaining his pilot’s licence.

Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, had acknowledged that he had interrupted his pilot’s training but had given no further details.

It now says that when he resumed training, he provided the flight school with medical documents showing that he had gone through a “previous episode of severe depression”.

Lufthansa cited e-mailed correspondence between Lubitz and the flight school.

The airline said it had passed the e-mails and additional documents to Duesseldorf prosecutors after internal investigations.

Investigators in Duesseldorf last week found torn-up sick notes showing that Lubitz was suffering from an illness that should have grounded him.

Read more: Lufthansa knew that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had suffered severe depression | euronews, world news

Germany - Air Crash: Profile Andreas Lubitz: co-pilot of Germanwings flight 4U9525 - all appears normal

Andreas Lubitz, 28, from the town of Montabaur in Rhineland-Palatinate, has been named as the co-pilot of Germanwings flight 4U9525 who appears to have deliberately crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

While the captain and crew banged on the cockpit door during the descent, Lubitz was said to have been breathing normally.

A first officer, Lubitz had been flying for Germanwings since September 2013 after being trained with the airline’s parent company, Lufthansa, in Bremen. He had clocked up 630 hours in the air.

The Lufthansa chief executive, Carsten Spohr, said Lubitz had passed all the psychological tests required for training and undergone regular physical examinations.

He told a press conference on Thursday that Lubitz had started training in 2008 - first working as a flight attendant - and there was nothing unusual in the results of his training, but acknowledged there had been a gap without saying what had caused it.

Andreas Lubitz: co-pilot of Germanwings flight 4U9525 - profile | World news | The Guardian

Air Crash: France - Live: Black box found at Germanwings crash site in French Alps

A Germanwings flight carrying 144 passengers and six crew from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashed Tuesday in the southern French Alps, aviation authorities said. French transport officials said there were no survivors.French President François Hollande called the crash "a tragedy on our soil''.

"We still don't know much beyond the bare information on the flight, and there should be no speculation on the cause of the crash," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin. "All that will be investigated thoroughly."

There were no survivors from the crash of flight 4U9525, said Alain Vidalies, France's junior minister of transport.

Brandet told BFM television that he expected the search and recovery operation to be "extremely long and extremely difficult'' due to the remoteness of the crash site.

Read more: France - Live: Black box found at Germanwings crash site in French Alps - France 24