Germanwings crash review finds need for mental health warnings

LE BOURGET, France — Aviation agencies around the world should draw up new rules requiring medical workers to warn authorities when a pilot’s mental health could threaten public safety, French investigators recommended Sunday after a yearlong probe into the Germanwings plane crash.

The French investigation found that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had been treated for depression in the past, had consulted with dozens of doctors in the weeks before he deliberately crashed a jet into the French Alps near the village of Le Vernet on March 24, 2015, killing all 150 people on board.

[...] none of the doctors told authorities of any concerns about Lubitz’s mental health, France’s BEA air accident investigation agency said, including one who referred Lubitz to a psychiatric clinic just two weeks before the crash.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine notes on its entry for Citalopram that children and young adults who take the drug can become suicidal “especially at the beginning of your treatment and any time that your dose is increased or decreased.”

Germany’s confidentiality laws prevent sensitive personal information from being widely shared, though doctors are allowed to suspend patient privacy if they believe there is a concrete danger to the person’s safety or that of others.