Trani prosecutors on Monday
requested that 18 people and the Ferrotramviaria local rail
company be brought to trial over a July 2016 head-on crash
between two trains in Puglia that killed 23 people and hurt 51.
The crash happened on July 12 that year on the single-line
stretch between the stations of Andria and Corato because of a
suspected mix-up in communications.
The suspects are accused of railway disaster, culpable
homicide, culpable grievous bodily harm, culpable omission of
precautionary measures, violation of work safety norms and false
representation.
The cause of accident - Italy's worst rail disaster in seven
years - was a mistake in communication between the stations of
Andria and Corato, prosecutors said in December.
Charges have also been filed against people whose job it was
to ensure greater safety, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors have said labour safety laws were violated
in the crash.
The prosecutors said the phone alert system used on the
stretch of single-track line where the crash occurred was
obsolete and dangerous.
Prosecutors in the Puglia city of Trani said that an
"obsolete and unsafe" phone alert system on the Corato-Andria
rail line violated labor safety laws, constituting a risk for
both passengers and workers, as part of a probe on a head-on
commuter train collision on July 12, 2016.
The system used by the railway's private owners, the
Ferrortamviaria company, is so obsolete it is not recognized as
a security system under current legislation, State attorneys
said.
The system in that particular stretch of track relied on an
old telephone alert system used to inform station masters of
trains travelling on the single track.
Those under investigation include the director general of
Ferrotramviaria Massimo Nitti and the two station masters in
Andria and Corato, Vito Piccarreta and Alessio Porcelli.
One of the trains involved in the crash had left Corato and
was heading for Andria while the other was en route from Andria
to Corato.
The two station masters testified in July last year to
prosecutors who are probing the incident for possible multiple
manslaughter.
The fact that two trains were waiting at his station in
Andria induced station master Piccarreta into an "automatism"
that resulted in one of them getting onto the single track north
of Bari and colliding with another coming from Corato,
investigative sources said after questioning Piccarreta.
The station master in Corato, Porcelli, meanwhile
essentially blamed his colleague at the other end of the stretch
for allegedly not alerting him when the train began travelling
on the single track where the crash happened.
According to his lawyer Porcelli, said "the Andria station
master, Vito Piccarreta, didn't tell me that he had sent off
train ET1021," which collided head-on with ER1016.
Earlier Piccarreta told prosecutors it was not him who
altered the departure time of the train that left Andria just
before 11 o'clock in the morning.
The train is recorded as leaving Andria for Corato at
10:59, but this time is believed to have been altered by pen,
leaving what was underneath scribbled out.
"I didn't write that," the station master told prosecutors,
referring to the scribbled-out writing, according to persons
present at the questioning.
Piccarreta however insisted that the train left Andria at
that time, 10:59, and not earlier as would have been possible if
a mistake had been made.
The station master is said to have volunteered the
information and did not wait to be asked if it has him who had
scribbled out the underlying writing, according to the persons
present at the questioning.
Piccareta said he had "no doubt" that the train left at
the time that was recorded on the time sheet, and that is, in
fact, 10:59.
The crash between Andria and Corato was Italy's worst rail
disaster since a gas train exploded in the Tuscan coastal town
of Viareggio in 2009, killing 32 people.
The Trani prosecutors are also probing a number of
executives at the company that operated the trains for possible
negligence.
The investigative team also reportedly wants to find out
why several millions euros earmarked for upgrading the line was
not spent.
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