Germanwings co-pilot checked online for suicide options—prosecutor

A report from German prosecutor’s office said on Friday in Dusseldorf that Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of crashed flight Germanwings flight 4U9525, checked the internet for ways to poison himself.

The office disclosed that his iPad showed he had searched to buy potassium cyanide, Valium or lethal combinations of medicines.

It said on March 23, the day before the crash, Lubitz also searched the internet for the term “living will”.

It said a living will can be drafted to direct doctors not to undertake any resuscitation. The office said this meant that he feared hatching a suicide.

Previously, German investigators had only said Mr. Lubitz, 27, had checked online for “means of suicide” before the March 24 crash in the French Alps, in which Mr. Lubitz and 149 other occupants of flight 4U9525 were killed.

The prosecutor’s office confirmed recent report that Mr. Lubitz never disclosed his suicide plans to anyone, a point which could make it very difficult to hold anyone else culpable for the crash.

It said findings so far indicated that his family and girlfriend, his doctors and his employer did not know he was setting up his suicide.

It said further that Mr. Lubitz had no serious illness for five years until December, when he began consulting doctors about a supposed eye illness, although there was nothing really wrong with his eyes.

The report said one of his doctor’s wrote a certificate, that he had a “complex of psychosomatic conditions,” but Lubitz did not pass on the chit to Germanwings.

Meanwhile, French investigators said that Mr. Lubitz was suffering from a raft of ailments that apparently had no physical cause.

It said he had been to seven medical appointments, including with psychiatrists, in the month before the crash.

(dpa/NAN)