German police make progress in profiling of Andreas Lubitz

German police make progress in profiling of Andreas Lubitz
By Seamus Kearney
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As a video emerges of the co-pilot of the ill-fated Germanwings jet, officials say they are making progress in piecing together his background one

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Officials say they are making progress in piecing together the background of Andreas Lubitz one week after he flew a plane carrying 150 people into a French mountain.

In news likely to fuel debate about how airlines screen and monitor pilots, German prosecutors say Lubitz was treated for suicidal tendencies years before receiving his pilot’s licence.

A commentator writing in the leading German news paper Die Welt has described the tragedy as the country’s 9/11 in terms of the way that people are dealing with it.

The new video of Lubitz shows him some years ago at the controls of a glider, apparently flying near his hometown, and filmed by someone sitting behind him.

Prosecutors say they believe Lubitz deliberately crashed the A320 plane into the French Alps, killing everyone on board, after locking the pilot out of the cockpit.

Victims’ families are being warned they might have to wait months for the bodies of their loved ones to be identified.

Colonel Francois Daoust at the Forensic Science Institute of the French Gendarmerie said: “Depending on the number of bodies and fragments of bodies found, the delay could vary between a minimum of two and four months.”

The plane crashed into a mountain in the French Alps while en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.

Relatives of two Australian citizens who died are the latest to pay their respects to their loved ones at the crash site memorial in the town of Seynes-les-Alpes.

Australian victims' family treat Germanwings crash as accident to deny Lubitz his wish http://t.co/dvgVlOgGJZ via ABCNews</a></p>&mdash; Gwen Jacobs (Cramdaline) March 31, 2015

#Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had been treated for suicidal tendencies: http://t.co/p7wqBNvoEWpic.twitter.com/KKAGnvXFDd

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) March 30, 2015

The Germanwings co-pilot had been undergoing psychotherapy because of suicidal thoughts: http://t.co/RT6Wl3eOmUpic.twitter.com/CQN7w6NNyb

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 30, 2015

Don't blame depression for the #GermanWings tragedy: http://t.co/r1mV0GdDN4

— YoungMinds (@YoungMindsUK) March 30, 2015

The way we talk about mental illness after tragedies like Germanwings needs to change http://t.co/rtdpVS147tpic.twitter.com/f3PQQ2nh6h

— HuffPost Living (@HealthyLiving) March 31, 2015

#Google blurs out home of #Germanwings crash pilot Andreas #Lubitz | via Telegraph</a> <a href="http://t.co/TYKixuewRZ">http://t.co/TYKixuewRZ</a></p>&mdash; Andrew Trotman (TeleTrotman) March 30, 2015

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