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Germanwings relatives after more compensation

Relatives of the Germanwings passengers who died when a co-pilot committed suicide are launching a legal bid for compensation.

The 39 families are suing parent company Lufthansa for allowing a co-pilot with known psychological problems to fly the plane, which deliberately crashed into the French Alps during a routine flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf in Germany.

All 144 passengers and 6 crew were killed, including co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had been previously treated for suicidal tendencies.

Germanwings co-pilot crashed deliberately: prosecutor
• Germanwings pilot ‘locked out of cabin’: report
• Germanwings voice recordings retrieved

Following the March incident, Lufthansa offered each of the families $AUD37,000 in compensation but were rejected.

 

The offer of $37,000 is on top of the $AUD74,000 already paid for immediate financial assistance following the crash.

The families’ lawyer, Elmar Giemulla, was quoted last month as saying a low six-figure sum would be accepted, according to The Telegraph.

The case will follow US law, and Mr Giemulla will co-operate with American firm Kreindler and Kreindler.

An investigation into the crash concluded co-pilot Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit of Germanwings flight 4U9525 before he deliberately steered the plane into the remote mountainside.

A report from the EU aviation watchdog suggested all pilots should be subjected to psychological tests, to be kept in an online database.

“We don’t know everything that happened in this tragedy but we know a certain number of causes and we thought we may not want to wait until the final report of the accident investigation to launch actions,” said Patrick Ky, executive director of the European Aviation Safety Agency.

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