EU Rebukes Germany for Airline Oversight Before Germanwings Crash
Commission faults Germany’s air-safety agency for years over staffing shortfalls that could hamper monitoring of air-crew medical status
EU officials said Germany’s air-safety regulator suffered from chronic staffing shortfalls that could undermine its ability to run checks of carriers and crew, including medical checks, according to two people familiar with the issue.
Last week Andreas Lubitz, Flight 9525’s 27-year-old co-pilot whose history of depression was flagged in his medical file, crashed the Airbus A320 jet into the French Alps killing himself and 149 others on board, French prosecutors allege.
Whether the deficiencies identified in Germany’s air-safety supervision were factors in the crash remains unclear. The French air accident office, the BEA, leading the Flight 9525 crash probe said this week it would look at potential systemic weaknesses, including any on psychological screening of crew.
Mr. Lubitz attended the Lufthansa Flight Training school in Bremen. Photo: fabian bimmer/Reuters
Germany has sent responses to the EU’s confidential rebuke in November of its federal aviation office, the Luftfahrtbundesamt, or LBA. Commission officials are now reviewing Germany’s “corrective action plan to address the findings,” a commission spokesman said.
Such citations aren’t unusual. The EU spokesman said every country in the 28-nation bloc has been cited for some aviation violations, without naming specific areas of concern. But the EU’s yearslong focus on aviation practices in Germany, one of Europe’s richest economies, is exceptional.
According to one of the people familiar with the EU findings, they relate to deficiencies in the LBA’s staffing levels and resources, access it provides to medical records and data, and its oversight of approved medical centers and examiners. More than 10 of the findings were related to medical issues, this person said.
The LBA declined to comment on the commission’s findings. The German transport ministry defended the LBA, which it oversees. “There is no cause for criticism of the LBA,” spokeswoman Vera Moosmayer said.
The LBA generally remains in the background of pilot screening and only gets directly involved if a pilot has been grounded and seeks reinstatement. Even so, the agency may have had information on Mr. Lubitz’s condition, a German medical examiner said, because he took time off from his training in 2009 for psychological issues.
Mr. Lubitz informed Lufthansa’s flight school that he had taken the break because of an “episode of severe depression,” the airline said Tuesday.
EU criticism of Germany’s shortfall in air oversight dates back at least four years. In 2011, officials from the EU’s European Aviation Safety Agency warned that Germany, Italy, Greece and some other countries weren’t complying with EASA-mandated oversight requirements as mandated by the commission through EASA.
In a highly unusual move, the commission in 2011 placed Germany on its quarterly list of aviation safety alerts, known as the airline blacklist. Its citation warned that the LBA suffered from “an insufficient numbers of qualified personnel” that could undermine the LBA’s ability “to ensure continuing oversight.”
Investigators find evidence that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz researched suicide methods and cockpit door technology in the days before Flight 9525's crash. Criminal justice professor Adam Lankford explains why some suicides end in murder. Photo: AP
Investigators find evidence that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz researched suicide methods and cockpit door technology in the days before Flight 9525's crash. Criminal justice professor Adam Lankford explains why some suicides end in murder. Photo: AP
Germany pledged to review personnel resources and staff levels. It was removed from the blacklist in late 2011.
The LBA, Germany’s equivalent of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, subsequently added some staff. But EU inspections continued to find shortfalls, many of which remained unresolved for an extended period, according to one person familiar with the findings.
EASA has said it communicates its findings to national civil aviation authorities and invites them to produce a corrective action plan. Airlines aren't involved in the process or implicated in problems.
Mr. Lubitz joined Germanwings, a budget unit of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, in September 2013. Before he was hired, he would have undergone psychological screening in a process also involving officials from the government-owned German Aerospace Center. The screening exceeds German legal requirements but is standard for Lufthansa, according to the airline and the transport ministry.
Mr. Lubitz’s license, which noted he had a special medical condition, required the physician performing his annual flight-fitness screening to inquire about the illness with the pilot himself or with the LBA-approved medical center holding his medical file.
The LBA doesn't store or have routine access to pilot medical files unless a pilot, having been grounded, appeals for a return to flying status. That differs from procedures in the U.S., where the FAA holds electronic records at a central facility.
—Valentina Pop contributed to this article.
EU agency found 'issues' with German aviation authority
The EASA had voiced concerns over Germany's "non-conformity" on aircrew health monitoring before last week's plane crash, a spokesman said. The co-pilot suspected of crashing the plane had suffered from depression.
The European Aviation Safety Agency "had pointed out several cases of non-conformity," with air safety rules, especially relating to monitoring the crew's health, spokesman Dominique Fouda said Saturday.
"On the basis of the EASA recommendations the European Commission launched, in late 2014, a process calling for accountability from Germany," he added.
The EU Commission confirmed the regulator found "issues" in a regular review of air safety enforcement.
"Germany's replies are currently being assessed," a Commission spokesmen told Reuters in an emailed statement.
"All EU member states have findings and this is a normal and regular occurrence," the Commission spokesman said, without specifying EASA's findings in Germany. "It is part of a continuous system of oversight: findings are followed by corrective action, similar to an audit process."
Co-pilot diagnosed as suicidal
Health monitoring and vetting of the crew came under public focus after a Germanwings plane went down in French Alps on March 24, killing all 150 people on board.
Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, suspected of crashing the plane on purpose, had been diagnosed as suicidal "several years ago," according to German prosecutors. In addition, Lubitz allegedly told officials at an airline training school he had gone through a period of severe depression in the past.
Although doctors recently did not find any indication that 27-year-old Lubitz intended to harm himself or others, he had received treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists. He was signed off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.
But Carsten Spohr, chief of Germanwings' parent company Lufthansa, has said the airline was utterly unaware of any health issues that could have compromised Lubitz's fitness to fly - despite revelations from Düsseldorf prosecutors that he had emailed his flight school in 2009 about his treatment.
A routine check
The Wall Street Journal wrote on Saturday that "EU officials said Germany's air-safety regulator suffered from chronic staffing shortfalls that could undermine its ability to run checks of carriers and crew, including medical checks."
However, spokeswoman for the German aviation authority LBA said the regulator answered a single-figure number of criticisms by EASA and that such checks of national aviation authorities take place several times a year.
Search for bodies ends
Officials in France have ended their search for bodies in the Alps where the plane crashed, Reuters news agency reported.
"The search for bodies is over, but the search for the victims' personal belongings is continuing," said a spokesman for the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region.
"Lufthansa has also hired a specialist firm to remove the debris of the aircraft, under the authority of the French public prosecutor and an expert in charge of environmental supervision of the operations," he said.
Identification of victims will continue through DNA analysis.
"On the basis of the EASA recommendations the European Commission launched, in late 2014, a process calling for accountability from Germany," he added.
The EU Commission confirmed the regulator found "issues" in a regular review of air safety enforcement.
"Germany's replies are currently being assessed," a Commission spokesmen told Reuters in an emailed statement.
"All EU member states have findings and this is a normal and regular occurrence," the Commission spokesman said, without specifying EASA's findings in Germany. "It is part of a continuous system of oversight: findings are followed by corrective action, similar to an audit process."
Co-pilot diagnosed as suicidal
Health monitoring and vetting of the crew came under public focus after a Germanwings plane went down in French Alps on March 24, killing all 150 people on board.
Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, suspected of crashing the plane on purpose, had been diagnosed as suicidal "several years ago," according to German prosecutors. In addition, Lubitz allegedly told officials at an airline training school he had gone through a period of severe depression in the past.
Although doctors recently did not find any indication that 27-year-old Lubitz intended to harm himself or others, he had received treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists. He was signed off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.
But Carsten Spohr, chief of Germanwings' parent company Lufthansa, has said the airline was utterly unaware of any health issues that could have compromised Lubitz's fitness to fly - despite revelations from Düsseldorf prosecutors that he had emailed his flight school in 2009 about his treatment.
A routine check
The Wall Street Journal wrote on Saturday that "EU officials said Germany's air-safety regulator suffered from chronic staffing shortfalls that could undermine its ability to run checks of carriers and crew, including medical checks."
However, spokeswoman for the German aviation authority LBA said the regulator answered a single-figure number of criticisms by EASA and that such checks of national aviation authorities take place several times a year.
Search for bodies ends
Officials in France have ended their search for bodies in the Alps where the plane crashed, Reuters news agency reported.
"The search for bodies is over, but the search for the victims' personal belongings is continuing," said a spokesman for the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region.
"Lufthansa has also hired a specialist firm to remove the debris of the aircraft, under the authority of the French public prosecutor and an expert in charge of environmental supervision of the operations," he said.
Identification of victims will continue through DNA analysis.
