- Seven years after the crash of a plane belonging to the German airline Germanwings in the Alps, the French judiciary has closed the case of involuntary manslaughter.
- The judges acquitted doctors who had treated the co-pilot in advance – and also the then managing directors of Germanwings.
- In 2015, the copilot intentionally steered the plane into a mountain. He suffered from depression.
The criminal court in Marseille came to the conclusion that no one could have foreseen and prevented the co-pilot from intentionally crashing the Airbus on March 24, 2015 and steering it into a mountain, said the spokeswoman for the Chamber for Mass Accidents. All 150 people on board the flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf perished. Most of the victims came from Germany.
In the process, the investigators also wanted to clarify a possible responsibility of Germanwings and the German parent company Lufthansa. The judges ruled that the criminal offense of involuntary manslaughter was not met against either a natural or a legal person. In doing so, they absolved the doctors consulted by the co-pilot, as well as the managing directors of Germanwings – today Eurowings – and the parent company Lufthansa of any criminal responsibility, i.e. of committing a possible error.
work colleagues clueless
The court based its decision on, among other things, a doctor who works as a public health inspector and on a psychiatric report. Ultimately, the judges found that the co-pilot’s suicidal act was unforeseeable despite his mental disorders. His employer had not been informed of the reasons for his work stoppages and the co-pilot had not informed the aero-medical service or colleagues.