Germanwings Crash: Ten Years Since Co-pilot Deliberately Downed Plane, Killing 149

Ten years have passed since the Germanwings crash in the French Alps in 2015, when a co-pilot suffering from psychological issues deliberately caused the plane to crash, killing all 149 passengers and crew on board. At 10:41 AM local time (12:41 PM Greek time) today (March 24, 2025), hundreds of people, mainly Germans and Spaniards, observed a minute of silence in the village of Le Vernet in the French Alps to honor the victims of the Germanwings disaster that occurred exactly ten years ago. The Airbus A320 operated by the low-cost German airline, a subsidiary of Lufthansa, crashed into the side of a mountain in this area at 10:41 AM on March 24, 2015. Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old co-pilot who was taking antidepressants, exploited the temporary absence of the captain to intentionally commit suicide, leading to the deaths of the 149 passengers and crew members. The aircraft was flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf with six crew members and 144 passengers from 19 countries, most of them German (72) and Spanish (50). Many families and friends gathered quietly for speeches and music during a commemorative event held far from public lights, honoring the approximately 360 relatives of the victims. Following the tragedy, the aviation industry mandated that two people must always be present in the cockpit, a rule later abandoned as ineffective. Medical and psychological monitoring of pilots has increased, and more advanced prevention and detection systems have been implemented. In March 2022, the French justice system closed its investigation into the crash without filing charges, deeming the co-pilot’s ‘suicidal’ action unforeseeable. Intentional aviation disasters involving pilots remain extremely rare in recent civil aviation history.