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Crashed train in Schäftlarn: one dead, 57 injured
Photo: Matthias Balk / dpa
Four months after the serious S-Bahn accident south of Munich, it comes out that one of the two train drivers has apparently disregarded elementary safety regulations.
In any case, an interim report published on Wednesday by the Federal Bureau for Railway Accident Investigation suggests that the train driver is said to have ignored a train protection system twice.
In February, two Munich S-Bahn trains collided on a single-track line near Schäftlarn.
One person died and 57 others were injured, some seriously.
Continue without consultation
The safety system ensures that trains that are running too fast or crossing red stop signals are automatically brought to a standstill.
The engine driver can then only start the train again by pressing a button - but only after a standardized conversation with the dispatcher, who monitors the train traffic on the relevant section and must authorize the onward journey via the red signal.
According to the report, the engine driver of the S-Bahn going to Munich refrained from consulting in two cases.
Once when he drove too fast in front of the Ebenhausen-Schäftlarn train station.
And another time when he ran the red exit signal from the station.
In a curve, the train then crashed into an S-Bahn coming from Munich at 57 kilometers per hour, which had come to a stop due to emergency braking.
The public prosecutor is also investigating
The Munich I public prosecutor's office, which is also investigating the accident, did not want to comment on the interim report when asked by SPIEGEL, citing the ongoing investigation.
At the same time, a spokeswoman for the authorities confirmed that an accused person was currently being investigated in connection with the accident because of the initial suspicion of negligent homicide, negligent bodily harm and endangering rail traffic.
According to information from railway circles, the affected single-track line was repeatedly affected by disruptions before the accident.
This is confirmed by the interim report that has now been published.
Accordingly, the crossing of the two trains would not have taken place at Icking station, as originally planned, but at Schäftlarn station.
According to the report, the reason for this was the disturbance at a level crossing, which delayed the S-Bahn journey from Munich by ten minutes.
The fact that train drivers can override the train protection system themselves has repeatedly led to accidents, some of them serious, in the past.
In August 2014, a freight train and a Eurocity collided in Mannheim.
35 people were injured.
And just two months ago, on April 23rd, a collision between a freight and a passenger train near Hanau could only be avoided at the last second.
training recommended
In a report published in 2015, the Federal Bureau of Railway Accident Investigation had already recommended that training courses should be used to improve the "awareness and competence of train crews" in the event of emergency braking.
She had also recommended that the "retrofitting of the on-board train control system" in the locomotives be checked "and further developed depending on the result".
That doesn't seem to have happened.
"We support the investigating authorities in the full investigation," said a railway spokesman.
"Since the investigative sovereignty lies exclusively with the law enforcement authorities, we ask for your understanding that Deutsche Bahn AG cannot and must not anticipate the final investigation result."