US judge throws out suit against school where Germanwings pilot trained
Almost two years after a plane was deliberately slammed into the Alps, judge says case should be heard in Germany, along with everything else tied to the case
Dallas — Almost two years to the day after a passenger plane was deliberately slammed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people aboard, a US judge threw out a lawsuit against the Arizona flight school where the pilot was trained. On March 24 2015, Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the captain of Flight 9525 out of the cockpit and flew the Airbus A320 into a mountainside. The 81 families of the doomed passengers alleged in a lawsuit that Airline Training Center Arizona, owned by Germanwings parent Deutsche Lufthansa, bore some responsibility for failing to screen out Lubitz. While finding some merit in the claim, US District Judge Diane Humetewa in Phoenix ruled on March 27 that since everything else about the case was tied to Germany, that was where it must be heard. She cited the legal principle of forum non conveniens, under which judges have discretion to shift a case to a different venue depending on the facts in hand. Seventy of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are German...
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