A French prosecutor on Thursday formally opened a criminal inquiry into the crash of a Germanwings jetliner, appointing a panel of judges to investigate whether the airline or any individuals should bear responsibility for failing to adequately monitor the psychological health of the plane’s co-pilot, reports The New York Times.
Brice Robin, the public prosecutor from the southern city of Marseille, who is in charge of the case, met with about 250 relatives of the crash victims and told them that the investigation was proceeding, according to people who were present.
Mr. Robin met with the families to brief them on the status of the French inquiry and to answer questions about their rights under French law. He also addressed practical matters relating to the identification and return of the victims’ personal effects.
The prosecutor was to speak with reporters later in the day, when he was expected to provide more details.
“France is clearly taking things in hand to pursue this investigation,” said Stéphane Gicquel, secretary general of a French association that represents the families of accident victims.
The meeting came just days after the first victims’ remains were returned to their families. The coffins of 44 of the flight’s 72 German victims, including a group of 16 high school students, arrived in Düsseldorf, Germany, late Tuesday and were claimed by relatives on Wednesday. Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, said it was making preparations to repatriate a large number of the flight’s 50 Spanish victims early next week, while the remaining transfers were expected to be completed by late June.
With the repatriation process underway, the authorities in France and Germany are now refocusing their attention on the circumstances that led up to the March 24th crash.
A preliminary report published by the French air accidents bureau, as well as evidence gathered by prosecutors so far, indicate that the 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, intentionally flew the plane into a mountainside after locking the captain out of the cockpit, killing himself and 149 others aboard the Germanwings flight, which was traveling to Düsseldorf from Barcelona, Spain.
German prosecutors have said that Mr. Lubitz had a history of depression, and medical records obtained by regulators in the United States indicate that he suffered a severe depressive episode in 2009 that led him to withdraw from Lufthansa’s elite flight-training school for 11 months for treatment.
Lufthansa has admitted that Mr. Lubitz informed the company of his illness at that time, but he was reinstated after a company flight doctor found him fit to return to the cockpit, and he was ultimately hired by Germanwings in 2013.