Many of the doctors who treated Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings co-pilot who deliberately crashed a Dusseldorf-bound plane into the Alps, thought he was unstable or unfit to fly, a French prosecutor said Thursday. But German patient privacy laws prevented them from telling his employer.
German medical secrecy laws can punish doctors with prison sentences if they disclose any information about patients — unless there is evidence that the patient plans to self-harm or commit a serious crime. Lubitz met with seven doctors, three of whom are psychiatrists, in the month before the crash, which killed all 150 people on board. Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said that Lubitz had vision problems and feared he was going blind, though German prosecutors said they have no evidence Lubitz had any physical ailments.
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