Hmm, maybe I'm misinterpreting. But to me nobody is absolving the co-pilot of his actions because he (allegedly) had suffered a severe depressive episode in the past and perhaps was in the middle of another episode.
You can have a severe depression and still make a heartless selfish decision (murdering all those people on your way out). And be a murderer without being depressed. And definitely you can be depressed without ever becoming a murderer. To me, acknowledging that he was having some sort of mental breakdown doesn't absolve him of his actions but it does start to provide at least some sort of explanation as to "why" he did what he did. Nobody in their right mind would fly a plane full of people into a mountain at 400 mph. Maybe you're extremely suicidal or maybe you're a cold-blooded psychopath. Either way... something's not right with your brain. And it's not an excuse.
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