The families of victims killed when a pilot deliberately crashed a plane on a mountain in the French Alps last year are suing the airline’s Arizona training center.
The lawsuit alleges the Airline Training Center of Arizona, where Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz was trained, failed to properly screen his medical background.
Lufthansa owns Germanwings and the center in Goodyear. When Lubitz was trained in Europe, he was suspended to treat depression. When he returned with a doctor’s letter saying he was no longer depressed, he was sent to Arizona for flight training.
German officials withheld his pilot medical certificate twice because of his history, before giving him a restricted medical certificate.
According to the suit, if the training center had screened Lubitz, officials would have found his history of severe depression.
In an email response, a Lufthansa spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
