Investigators found a discarded, "slashed," doctor's note in a waste basket in Andreas Lubitz' apartment excusing Lubitz from flying the day he crashed 4U9525. A prosecutor said he "hid" this information from Germanwings/Lufthansa. No medical diagnosis, if any was on the note, has been made publicly available. It has been reported that Lubitz was "depressed" and today that he had recently broken up with his girlfriend. All of this by way of providing partial explanation for him killing himself and 149 others.
It's a lead! Are those doctor's notes compulsory, that is, do they prohibit a person from going to work? Or are they an "excuse" if the patient doesn't want to work but really can, like those we used to get for the teacher when we didn't want to go to school, to be used at our option? Don't know. In only the former case however could it fairly be said that the patient had "hid" the note from his employer. The investigators go farther than that: they say. or posit, that Lubitz was hiding an illness from his employer by hiding the note. THAT reasoning does not hold up. Lufthansa KNOWS what "illness" Lubitz had, they just won't say. Patient confidentiality.
So let us assume that the reports are accurate that Lubitz was depressed and that depression was the reason for the doctor's note on the date of the crash and the reason why he missed months of flight training before becoming a pilot. LUFTHANSA KNOWS THAT and gave him a clean bill of health, he was "flight worthy." Depression is usually symptomatic, not causal: something bad happens to you--like breaking up with your girlfriend--and boom, you go into a funk, you're depressed. In that case I don't think the employer would know from the medical people what the cause of the depression was. The medical diagnosis is depression, the guy is excused from work today, end of doctor's note! If the medical diagnosis was flu, the doctor wouldn't note or tell the employer what made the guy get the flu. If the condition was recurring, as this hypothetical depression was, then the employer would have reason to want to know what the cause was. The guy just can't keep on missing days of work.
So let us assume that that was the case: Lubitz' depression was recurring, the cause went unreported to Lufthansa, who didn't even ask until it became recurring, but now, on the date of the crash, or recently, Lufthansa became concerned. "Andreas, what up?" What if Andreas didn't want to say? What if he didn't want to tell Lufthansa the cause of his depression? Then Andreas would have a reason for hiding the doctor's note! "If I put this in one more time...Oh screw it, I'm just going to go to work." Now he's sick and pissed off.
What underlying cause of depression--which your employer already knows about--would you want to keep hidden? Girlfriend trouble? No, not something to hide. Cancer? No. A personality disorder or severe mental illness? Yes, but how could that have escaped Lufthansa's screening? HIV/AIDS? Yes, and I don't think you have to tell your employer that. Did Andreas Lubitz have HIV/AIDS? I have wondered this since the moment I saw the photographs of him. Girlfriend or no girlfriend, he just "looks" gay to me.
