Germanwings co-pilot saw 7 doctors weeks before fatal crash

A picture made available March 27 2015 shows Andreas Lubitz, co-pilot of Germanwings flight 4U9525, running the Airportrace half marathon in Hamburg, Germany, Sept 13, 2009. [Photo/IC]

PARIS - Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of Germanwings who deliberately crashed the aircraft into the southern French Alps in March, saw seven doctors a month before the crash and 41 others in five years after suffering from psychosis, Brice Robin, prosecutor of Marseille said on Thursday.

"Lubitz was concerned about his health and feared a loss of his sight, suffering from severe depression and psychosis," said the prosecutor.

At a meeting with the families' victims in Paris, Robin unveiled that the co-pilot had seen, during the weeks before the crash a general practitioner, three psychiatrists and three ENT specialists with one of them noted "a auspicious threatening psychosis."

In March 24, the airbus A320, operated by Lufthansa's budget airline Germanwings, crashed while flying from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany, killing all 144 passengers and six crew members on board.

Analysis of the plane's two black boxes revealed that Lubitz deliberately destroyed the plane after locking his captain out of the cockpit.

The 28-year-old co-pilot had been working for Germanwings since September 2013 and completed 630 flight hours.

He was trained as pilot at Lufthansa' pilot school in the German city of Bremen before he was hired, according to the German company.