MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th July, 2023) Relatives of those killed in a crash of a Germanwings plane in the French Alps in 2015 have filed a lawsuit against Germany, media reported on Tuesday.
The relatives filed a claim for damages against Germany with a regional court in the city of Braunschweig more than eight years after the incident, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
Families of 32 of the 144 plane crash victims had already received compensations of 10,000 Euros ($10,800) from Germany's Lufthansa airline, who wholly owned the low-cost carrier, although some of them demanded that the amount be increased, the report said.
In September 2021, a German court dismissed their lawsuit, ruling that the German Federal Aviation Office, headquartered in Braunschweig, rather than the air carrier, was responsible for the mental condition of the pilot who had deliberately crashed the plain against the mountains, the newspaper said.
"The ruling was that the mentally disturbed co-pilot could not be allowed to be in the cockpit and that the crash wouldn't have happened if he was properly checked up before in accordance with the regulations," the legal assistant of one of the families, �Julius Reiter, was quoted by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as saying.
On March 24, 2015, a plane due to Dusseldorf from Barcelona crashed 100 km (62 miles) north-west of the city of Nice in the French Alps. All 144 passengers and all six crew members were killed. According to the data of the flight recorder salvaged at the crash site, the catastrophe was deliberately caused by the co-pilot, German national Andreas Lubitz.
The investigation concluded that Lubitz had been previously treated for suicidal tendencies and had consulted 41 doctors several months before the crash. He complained of impaired sight, sleeplessness and suicidal thoughts. A number of his doctors told the investigators that he had been suffering from a severe mental disturbance, but none of them had tried to contact his employer and warn that Lubitz was unfit for work.
