- GERMANWINGS’ KILLER CO-PILOT HAD MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES… The killer co-pilot of Germanwings’ flight 4U 9525, Andreas Gunter Lubitz (28), had suffered depression and ‘burn-out’ with apparently unresolved mental health issues before he deliberately murdered 144 passengers and five crew members on Tuesday, March 24, 2015, in the French Alps. Lubitz, a German, locked his chief pilot out of the cockpit, refused to open the door of the 24 year-old A320 plane, in spite of persistent banging. Travelling at 400 miles per hour, the Barcelona to Dusseldorf morning flight with citizens from at least 15 countries plunged from 38,000 feet to about 6,000 before crashing. An analysis of the voice recorder, retrieved on wednesday (March 25), revealed that Lubitz (who had 600 hours of flying since he joined the airline in 2013) breathed calmly all through the final eight minutes of the doomed plane.