Track workers named as suspects!
There is a turning point in the investigation into the Frecciarossa disaster. The Public Prosecutor of Lodi has entered the first five names in the register of suspects for railway disaster, manslaughter and multiple injuries. These are the workers of the team that worked in the night between Wednesday and Thursday on the turnout from which the derailment was triggered. The acceleration to the investigations came after a day of technical surveys of the Polfer and Scientific Research Unit operating on the remains of the ATR 1000. But now it is necessary to analyze in depth the exchange that triggered the disaster. Unrepeatable exams which must therefore involve the participation of lawyers and consultants of potentially suspect persons. Just to guarantee the defenses, therefore, the prosecutor of Lodi Domenico Chiaro has decided to notify the warranty information to verify any culpable liability in the accident. An act due in the case of the workers who worked on the exchange that night and on which the attention of the investigators was concentrated .
The sensors
Listened to as people informed of the facts by the investigators as early as Thursday afternoon, the workers said they had left the exchange in the correct position with respect to the running direction of the Frecciarossa. The
"hydraulic diverter" was however found in an "inverted" position by the investigators,that is, open to a service track. A circumstance not reported by the monitoring system of the Bologna plant since the exchange had been "isolated" by the technicians during and after the maintenance works. And for this reason the safety sensors could not transmit the deviation signal which would immediately slow down the train's travel. Instead the convoy launched at 290 kilometers per hour came off the tracks and the leading car broke away from the rest of the train killing the train drivers Mario Dicuonzo and Giuseppe Cicciù.
Video: Train derailed, the dynamics of the accident: the images a few meters from the cars
The phonogram
At 4.45, one of the five technicians investigated had sent a phonogram to Bologna to warn that the exchange had been "isolated" from the signaling system and above all to communicate that the turnout was placed "in a normal position" (therefore in line with the train track ). For this reason, the investigators want to reconstruct what actually happened and what works were carried out by the workers, not suspended by the Italian railway network but in the meantime destined for "another assignment". The RFI technicians worked on the line in the stretch between Livraga and Ospedaletto from midnight to 5. Thirty five minutes later, the passage of the train and the crash. During the works the exchange was "isolated" from the Bologna remote control center and operated by the console of the Livraga maneuver center,
The maneuvers
During their intervention (of «ordinary cyclical maintenance»), the technicians worked on mechanical and electrical parts of the turnout. Basically they opened the hydraulic and mechanical systems that are fundamental for operation. The exchange would have been handled several times both from the console and through the use of special levers that allow you to move the tracks manually without electricity. The repair, however, had not been sufficient and for this reason the technicians had decided - as per procedure - to keep the exchange "isolated" from the security system. Without realizing, however, that the turnout had remained "open" and that it would have mortally diverted the run of the Frecciarossa.