Depressed pilots ‘should not be banned’

Pilots with a history of depression should not be banned from flying commercial jets, according to a leading British psychiatrist, in a warning against a knee-jerk reaction to the French Alps air disaster.

Reports have suggested Andreas Lubitz had suffered from mental health issues and may have been receiving treatment for vision problems before he steered the Germanwings Airbus A320 into the mountain range, killing all 150 people on board.

A father of one of the three Britons on the flight called for more to be done to see pilots were “looked after”, while the Observer newspaper said Civil Aviation Authority documents suggested some 100 commercial airline pilots in the UK had a history of depression, with 42 still on medication.