Families of Germanwings suicide pilot's victims in legal battle against flight school
Families of the victims of the Germanwings pilot suicide disaster have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the American flight firm who trained the killer.
Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot who was subsequently found to have had mental health issues, locked the pilot out of the cockpit and crashed the plane into the French Alps, taking 150 innocent people with him.
On the fateful flight on March 24 last year was Bushbury man, father-of-two, Martyn Matthews, an avid Wolves supporter and dedicated family man who had been on the Dusseldorf to Barcelona flight as part of a work trip. He worked as a senior quality control manager at Huf UK in Tipton and left behind wife Sharon and children Nathan and Jade.
Now law firm Irwin Mitchell is set to represent the families of the British and Spanish passengers within a group action filed in America against the Airline Training Center Arizona, where Lubitz trained.
Mr Matthews widow Sharon told the Express & Star last month: "I need to keep fighting because I have to get justice for my husband."
Jim Morris, an aviation lawyer at Irwin Mitchell and former RAF pilot, said: "Our clients understandably remain incredibly upset and angry about what happened on and before March 24, 2015 and while nothing can bring their loved ones back, they want those who were responsible for allowing Lubitz to qualify as a pilot and fly commercial airliners to be brought to justice. As well as securing justice for those that they have lost, our clients also want lessons to be learned to avoid a similar tragedy occurring in the future.
"To that end we have joined forces with other specialist law firms to form a group action representing 80 families from across the world to file a lawsuit in Arizona USA against the Airline Training Center Arizona, a company of the Lufthansa global airline organization, where the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz trained."
Prior to his pilot training at the Arizona Flight School, Lubitz had lost his medical category due to mental illness which included severe depression.
Despite this and the fact that when he regained his medical certificate it had a condition that he was to be grounded if any symptoms returned, the Flight School allowed him to be enrolled onto the course and qualify as a pilot who would fly airliners for Germanwings.
It was also revealed after the crash that Lubitz's symptoms had returned but he had concealed them and the treatment he received from the aviation authorities and Lufthansa.
