Yorkshire victim of air crash swapped his flight

French emergency rescue services work among debris of the Germanwings passenger jet at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France.

Paul Bramley, 28, who was originally from Hull, died when Andreas Lubitz locked the Germanwings flight’s captain out of the cockpit before flying the plane into a mountainside, killing all 150 people on board.

But Mr Bramley’s girlfriend, Anneli Tiirik, said she did not blame Lubitz, 27, who had hidden a sick note on the day of the crash and was found to have researched suicide methods in the days leading up to the disaster.

The 23-year-old said: “I cannot hate or blame someone for being sick.

Paul Bramley, 28, originally from Hull, changed his travel plans at the last moment, a move which would cost him his life.

“Instead of blaming sick people and trying to understand their motives from the perspective of a health mind, we should concentrate on changing the system that enables such people to be in positions of power.”

The music student, who began dating Mr Bramley in 2011, said she hoped airlines would bring in greater checks, such as brain scans, to prevent similar disasters in future.

She said she had waited for Mr Bramley at Manchester Airport, having flown in herself from Estonia, before later learning of the crash.

“He was originally meant to land in Manchester on the Monday night, but he changed his flight at the last moment for Tuesday. That was all the information his mum and I had, because he had switched off his mobile phone.

“I had a bad feeling because he would never have left me alone waiting like that.

“I had been there for a couple of hours when one of his relatives came to pick me up. She stepped out of the car with tissues in her hand. My heart sank and I knew the worst had happened.”

Mr Bramley was studying hospitality and hotel management at César Ritz College in Lucerne and had been set to start an internship on April 1. He had just finished his first year at the college and was flying home from a few days holiday with friends in Barcelona when he was killed.

The other Britons killed were Martyn Matthews, 50, from Wolverhampton, and seven-month-old Julian Pracz-Bandres, from Manchester, who died alongside his mother, Marina Bandres Lopez Belio, 37, originally from Spain.

Many UK airlines changed their rules in the wake of the crash to ensure that two people are in the cockpit at all times.

In the aftermath of the crash Mr Bramley’s father Philip made an emotional appeal saying it “should never happen again”.

Fighting back tears in Digne, close to where the flight came down, Mr Bramley said: “What is relevant, is that it should never happen again; my son and everyone on that plane should not be forgotten, ever. I don’t want it to be forgotten, ever.”

He added: “I believe the airlines should be more transparent and our finest pilots looked after properly. We put our lives and our children’s lives in their hands. I want to see this cloud over this town lifted and the natural beauty be restored and not to be remembered by the action of a single person.”