Germanwings Pilot Saw Psychiatrist Three Times, Doubled Antidepressant Before Crash

Rob Wipond
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The man who deliberately crashed a Germanwings commercial airliner with 150 passengers aboard was actively in psychiatric treatment at the time, reported the New York Times.

Pilot Andreas Lubitz “had seven medical appointments in the month before the crash, including three with a psychiatrist, and had taken eight sick days off work,” reported the Times. “Some of the doctors felt Lubitz was psychologically unstable, and some felt he was unfit to fly.”

According to the official investigator cited by the Times, Lubitz had expressed to his physicians that he could only sleep two hours a night, was anxious about losing his sight, and had doubled the dosage of the antidepressant mirtazapine that he was taking from 15 to 30 milligrams.

Prosecutor: Germanwings Co-Pilot Feared Going Blind (CNN, June 12, 2015)

11 COMMENTS

  2. The mirtazapine may have been keeping him awake and raising the dose may have made it worse. I used to say that I was prone to paradoxical reactions, now I know that psyche meds are prone to causing paradoxical reactions as any ad will illustrate; but the fact that the had chronic problems with sleep was sufficient to ground him. No diagnosis or mental health issue need be mentioned. We all need SLEEP— precious, precious sleep.

  4. Mirtazapine, particularly, is more drowsy making at lower doses, say, 15 mg and under. Higher doses are more stimulating.

    So when is it going to come out that it was the drugs, not the illness?

    I’m not saying that the young man didn’t have native warp and twist – but the drugs would only drive that up to a maddening level.

    • Common sense would say it was the drugs and not the illness, depression makes someone not want to get out of bed, they are unable to plan things out, find it hard to even eat, let alone shower or do anything else. Yet when someone plans a murder we then say it was caused by depression??!! It is physiologically impossible for someone to have the symptoms of the so called illness caused depression and to murder someone, because they two are complete opposites of each other.

      I do believe that the guy had a lot of stuff going on for him, but the solution of the so called medical system to not look at what was really happening, to give him medications, which are linked to both homicidal and suicidal behaviour and to keep them a position of authority over so many lives on the basis of confidentiality is beyond me. Not something I will ever understand. The faith in these so called medications is completely beyond me.

  6. yes when will it be admitted it is the drugs not the person. The drugs are so strong and experimental, very few people are actually reporting what happens to them on the drugs as they feel because of the way the system treats people that it is them. The drugs continue to make people sicker and we need to let our doctors and our lawyers and our political figures know this. How do we speak up?