Fire disaster on the Kaprun glacier lift 2

Fire disaster on the Kaprun glacier lift 2
	; Accident train a few weeks before the disaster
Cause of accident	Fire from fan heater and leaking hydraulic oil
place	Kaprun , Austria
date	Nov 11, 2000
Fatalities	155
Survivors	12th
Defendants	16
Convictions	no
Financial damages	320 million Austrian schillings = ; 25.4 million euros
	Kaprun
	Kaprun

On November 11, 2000, 155 people died in a fire in a train belonging to the Kaprun 2 glacier railway in the tunnel . It was the greatest catastrophe that has occurred in Austria since the Second World War . In the burning train moving uphill, 150 of the 162 passengers died from smoke inhalation. In addition, the train driver and a tourist as well as three people died on the mountain station from smoke poisoning in the oncoming train .

course

According to eyewitness reports, smoke was discovered about 20 meters after the glacier cable car left the valley station at around 9 a.m. because a fire had broken out in the driver's cab on the valley side . After a journey of 1,132 meters, the train stopped in the lower third of the tunnel due to a leak in the brake hydraulics (automatic braking in the event of a pressure drop). The origin and development of the fire was difficult to reconstruct because the driver's cab was completely burned out except for the metal skeleton. The identical, undamaged second set traveling downhill was therefore used to investigate the accident.

Numerous casualties died on the train because its doors could only be opened by the attendant for safety reasons. The passenger compartments of the trains were also not equipped with hand fire extinguishers or emergency hammers . Most of the people who were able to free themselves from the train ran - presumably in panic - away from the source of the fire in the back of the train through the tunnel and up into the deadly cloud of smoke . Only twelve people, two Austrians and ten German vacationers, were able to break free in the early phase of the fire by smashing a window from the rear of the train and survived because they ran down the tunnel against the effect of the chimney .

One of the most prominent victims of the fire disaster was the 19-year-old freestyle and mogul world champion Sandra Schmitt , who died with her parents.

nationality	Fatalities
Austria Austria	92
Germany Germany	37
Japan Japan	10
United States United States	08th
Slovenia Slovenia	04th
Netherlands Netherlands	02
United Kingdom United Kingdom	01
Czech Republic Czech Republic	01
Total	155

causes

Glacier lift Kaprun 2 when entering the mountain station

The most likely cause was assumed to be that the hydraulic lines laid in the driver's cab in the immediate vicinity of a fan heater lost oil at their connectors, which reached the 600 ° C star heater of the heater and ignited. The now burning fan heater then set other hydraulic lines on fire. Since the lines were under pressure, the oil came out at around 190 bar ; the hydraulic fluid spread and maintained the fire due to its flammability (see also fat fire ). A strong draft ( chimney effect ), which pulled from the lower end of the tunnel to the mountain station, fanned the fire and brought the toxic smoke gases into the upper part of the tunnel to the mountain station.

According to initial reports by several fire experts , the fire on the glacier lift was triggered due to a technical defect in a fan heater installed in the lower, unoccupied driver's cab and the resulting fire of 180 liters of leaked hydraulic oil.

According to evidence from reports drawn up later on behalf of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office, however, it was not a technical defect in the fan heater, but rather the improper installation of the device, which is also not intended for use in vehicles, contrary to the instructions for use, which caused the hydraulic oil to ignite. Due to the modifications made to the housing during installation, the originally existing protection against liquids dripping onto the device was no longer given; all test marks ( VDE , GS ) on the fan heater were canceled.

Against this, it was objected that the funicular railway was not classified as a vehicle but as a vehicle, and that technical requirements that apply to vehicles are not applicable to vehicles. The investigation report of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office expressly rejects this legal differentiation. In addition, unauthorized technical changes by the company commissioned with the installation are named as a further cause of the accident. The tragic course of the accident also contributed to the fact that there were no escape routes and no emergency exits that could be opened for the trapped persons themselves, and that the compartments did not have an intercom that would allow contact with the driver and thus an earlier stop of the train.

Criminal litigation and court hearings

In the subsequent criminal trial in Salzburg , 16 suspects were charged, including three senior employees of Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG .

The indictment was § 170 StGB, negligent causing of a conflagration, and § 177 StGB, negligent threat to the community.

The following are the 16 accused as well as the associated acquittals and their respective reasons:

Three employees of Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG (the technical director, the main operations manager and the operations manager); According to the indictment, when the car bodies were rebuilt in 1993/94, they failed to ensure their safe construction and equipment in accordance with the state of the art. The acquittal of these people was based, among other things, on the legal norms of the time that related to the fire protection safety standards for funicular railways. With reference to these Austrian legal norms, the judgment says: "A review of the same showed that the relevant norms did not exist here and so claims [...] could not be derived from this legal material." It was stated: "Fire trigger was a construction, production and Material defects in the heater housing and no dirt residues or oil leaks. "

Two managing directors of the Austrian Swoboda Karosserie- und Stahlbau Ges.mbH (since 2005 Carvatech ), whose fitters, due to a lack of delivery availability, instead of the actually intended, for the purpose suitable industrial fan heaters from the Domo brand in an improper in-house construction simple household fan heaters from the Fakir Hobby TLB brand built into the four driver's cabs. In the process, the fans in the driver's cabs on the valley side were dismantled, whereby all test marks and safety stickers were extinguished; also the drip protection that was actually present was no longer given. The devices on the mountain side, however, were not dismantled and exchanged for other devices before the accident. According to the acquittal, the managing directors themselves were not to blame, because they had given their purchasing department clear instructions to purchase devices that were "officially approved", specifically Domo fan heaters - the same model that the company had already shipped to Salzburg with official approval Had built the fortress railway. When ordering, one of the managing directors enclosed the associated instructions for use so that the purchasing department can really order the correct device again. When the Swoboda purchasing department discovered that Domo fan heaters were not available at the time, out of an assumed lack of knowledge they ordered simple devices for private households instead, namely fan heaters of the type Fakir Hobby TLB . According to the acquittal, the accused managers had absolutely no knowledge that other, unsuitable devices had been purchased. According to the judgment, a foreman from the Swoboda company who picked up the ordered devices from the supplier Höller-Eisen in Gmunden did not recognize that the purchasing department had purchased incorrect, unsuitable devices and left them in the trust that the order was correct Install the track. In addition, the Swoboda electrical workshop had already attached the manuals for the originally intended Domo fan heaters to the documents for the Gletscherbahnen and Siemens, which was later also involved in the construction of the railway - the staff responsible at Swoboda were there from the outset assumed that the correct equipment would be installed in the railway at the time of delivery. Originally, in their order from Swoboda, the Kaprun glacier railways correctly ordered “4 fan heaters like Salzburg Fortress”, that is, approved and above all suitable devices. In the written judgment it was stated in relation to the now false fan heaters that “the radiator was provided with all appropriate safety stickers. [...] The evidence process has also revealed that the glacier Kaprun AG was given an incorrect manual, namely the manual of Domo fan heater "and that" even the company Siemens AG [...] a data sheet on the heater of the company Domo was sent ". Regarding the original order of the Domo fan heater by the Swoboda management, the following is again noted: "[...] as it was officially used at the time in the Salzburg fortress railway". The fact that the user manual for the fakir heater expressly stated that the devices must not be opened under any circumstances for safety reasons and that all test marks would become invalid in the event of a violation was not mentioned in the judgment. A few years after the judgment, the VDE , i.e. the publisher of the test marks on the fan heater, established that the test marks had lost their validity due to the conversion of the devices and that the use of the fan heater was no longer permitted after these conversions, regardless of the place of use .

Three employees of the German Mannesmann-Rexroth AG (since 2001 Bosch Rexroth AG); In both trains, they installed hydraulic lines carrying inflammable oil directly behind or above the fan heaters on the valley side. Although pictures taken by the forensics department and statements by two experts and an employee of the glacier cable car indicated that hydraulic oil had penetrated the heater of the remaining set, the judgment stated the opposite: "In the photos you can only see red condensed water, caused by a reflection." The testimony of witnesses about the oil was officially withdrawn in court by two people explicitly questioned about it, but confirmed again after the trial by one of the two, as well as by the dismissed chief expert Anton Muhr, who still rejects the court's view. Contrary to practice, a sample of the oil was not taken during the first trial. The verdict finally stated: "As already stated in general, the cause of the fire of November 11, 2000 was not a leak in the hydraulic system, no hydraulic oil leaked." The three defendants from Mannesmann-Rexroth were acquitted on the following grounds: “It is expressly stated that when the lines were laid by the three accused hydraulic fitters, the fan heater was no longer installed. [...] It cannot be determined when it was installed again after the work was completed. [...] It can no longer be determined who dismantled these fan heaters before the piping work began. ”In the judgment, it was therefore assumed that the fitters of the hydraulic lines did not know that a fan heater would be installed in the immediate vicinity of the lines they had laid ; the opposite, i.e. that the fitters knew about it, could not be proven according to the judgment.

Three officials from the Ministry of Transport who had issued the railway operating license; They were also acquitted on the grounds that the fakir fan heaters were suitable as they had valid certification marks; In addition, the fire hazard on funicular railways was not known: “Regarding the officials of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology [...], reference should be made to the statements made regarding the materials used, the technology and safety devices and the fan heater. [...] The authorities did not already have any indications, incidents or concerns in the railway law building permit procedure that vehicle equipment could be of fire protection concern. "

Two inspectors from TÜV , who accepted the train and did not complain about existing defects. These deficiencies mainly related to the statements of the expert Anton Muhr, who had complained about a wooden shoring that had not been registered with the TÜV, which had been installed by employees of the glacier lifts in the desk near the fan heaters and stuffed with rock wool. According to the expert Muhr, this rock wool was sucked in by the fan heaters. The acquittal states that the evidence procedure could not determine when the wooden shoring was sealed with the rock wool, so that it cannot be said that the wool was already there at the time of the inspection by the TÜV employees. “In addition, the court assumes that […] with regard to the point in time […] it was brought in before the inspection by the TÜV. [...] The wooden shoring [was] not conspicuous. ”It also states that“ the wooden shoring has no real connection with the development or spread of fire ”. With regard to the hydraulic lines on the rear wall of the fan heater, it says: “With regard to the routing of the hydraulic lines on the rear wall of the fan heater, [...] it is assumed that the hydraulic system [...] represents a complex assembly, so that [...] this system is timely for testing not approached yet. "

Three people because of an open fire door at the exit lock of the mountain station; this door - after initially successfully closing automatically at the moment of the power failure at the mountain station - was opened manually by the main operations manager in the course of an attempt to escape from the tunnel and was no longer closed, which allowed smoke from the tunnel to penetrate into the Alpincenter, which several people present cost life. Specifically, however, the three accused were a technician who had installed the door, a testing technician who had carried out the official inspection of the door, and a builder who had carried out another inspection of the system in September 2000. However, the named persons were not to blame, as the door worked as prescribed and in the event of a fire should not have been opened by hand or left open afterwards. Quote: "[...] whereby the question of single or multiple closing was seen by the court in such a way that simply closing the door is sufficient, which [...] [from] the wording of the Ö-Norm [...] results [...]".

On February 20, 2004, the trial ended with acquittals for all of the accused. In summary, it should be stated again that despite the questionable construction method of the railway from today's perspective, there were actually comparatively lax safety regulations at that time, which in the opinion of the judge had also been observed. Although the built-in fan heaters, which represented the Corpus Delicti in the process , were explicitly not approved for vehicles by the manufacturer, the defense insisted on a representation according to which the unfortunate railway was merely a funicular railway , which could not be considered a conventional vehicle . In the end, the judge agreed with this publicly controversial representation.

In his reasoning for the judgment, the judge referred to the design and production errors of the fan heater, which the user could not detect. These would have led to very fine, but increasingly stronger cracks in the housing, so that the heater star finally broke off, touched the housing and set it on fire. The judge followed the reviewers in his judgment.

In this context, taking into account the judgment in the sense of a balanced presentation, it should be critically noted that other reports and tests, some of which were carried out after the trial, in particular those of the Heilbronn public prosecutor and the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office , as well as the dismissed original chief expert Anton Muhr, are completely different Have shown that there were no faults with the fan heater. In various tests, the plastic housing of the fan heater only caught fire when the broken heater star was pressed against the housing with force. Rather, the oil leaked from the hydraulic lines, which had become leaky over the years, and got into the heater, which ultimately triggered the fire. This representation was rejected by the judge, however, which led to the fact that many opponents of the outcome of the case accuse him to this day of having deliberately acted in a partial manner in order to direct the blame from the Austrian defendants towards the German fan heater manufacturer Fakir. One of the reasons given is that the judge had private connections to the management level of Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG through the Lions Club Salzburg, as well as the fact that an expert was a member of the same International Organization for the Cable Car Industry (OITAF) as the Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG. Furthermore, the judge would have wanted to protect Austrian tourism. These allegations could not be proven and are considered speculation.

For eight suspects (two responsible persons of the Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG, two employees of the wagon body manufacturer, two official experts and two TÜV employees) there was an appeal hearing at the Higher Regional Court of Linz on September 26, 2005 . On September 27, 2005, the appeal hearing ended with the confirmation of the acquittals for all eight defendants. The prosecution's requests for evidence were rejected. Overall, the three-member judges' senate assessed the appeal as insufficiently justified and in some cases as incomprehensible. This judgment is therefore final.

Testimony from the representatives of the manufacturer Fakir in the context of the criminal proceedings in Salzburg led to the fact that the Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG filed a statement of facts with the Salzburg public prosecutor because of false testimony. The Salzburg public prosecutor passed the proceedings on to the Heilbronn public prosecutor . According to media information from the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office, these proceedings were discontinued on September 25, 2007, as the manufacturer Fakir - in contrast to the finding in the judgment of the Austrian judges - was not at fault.

In the criminal proceedings, however, it was found that Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG had all the necessary operating permits that corresponded to the state of the art at the time, and that it was regularly serviced and checked in accordance with the regulations. The driver's cab heater was built into the glacier lift from the start; In 1994, when the trains were being converted, Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG ordered such a heater from the railway builder, Swoboda .

In spring 2006, a complaint was sought at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The latter rejected the complaint in December 2007.

In November 2008, several relatives and victims joined an expert's complaint against the experts deployed in the trial. Like many other proposed proceedings, this proceeding has not been initiated.

Time after that

The "Alpincenter" served as the mountain station of the glacier lift

The Salzburg judgment still causes incomprehension among many people today. “It cannot be that 155 people die and no one is to blame,” is what you hear again and again. Lawyers, on the other hand, argue that guilt presupposes that people acted willfully or negligently. If they could not see that their behavior was wrong, they are not to blame. According to the verdict, no misconduct could be proven in the Salzburg trial , including negligence . Accordingly, the judge of the Salzburg proceedings justified the acquittal.

After the main litigation in Austria, the Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG sued in 2005 against Fakir, the manufacturer of the Hobby TLB fan heater. The technical director, the former commercial director, two former managing directors and the owner and managing director of the company F + P Thermoplast (later Simm Kunststofftechnik) were charged. The accusation was based on the suspicion "[...] of negligent homicide in 155 cases in connection with the fire disaster on November 11, 2000 at the Kitzsteinhorn in Kaprun / Austria". The Salzburg public prosecutor's office thereupon sent a request for legal assistance to the public prosecutor's office in Heilbronn , "since the company headquarters of the Fakir company is in Vaihingen / Enz," as the report says.

The results of the investigation by the Heilbronn public prosecutor finally came to the conclusion that there was “no evidence of any criminal behavior on the part of the accused” at Fakir.

Investigation report from the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office

Invalid test marks on the heater

For example, one of the most important arguments put forward by the Salzburg court was that the device would be suitable in terms of the certification mark, since the funicular is not a vehicle at all and that the device would have a certification mark from the VDE . However, the German investigators found that, regardless of the place of use, a completely new VDE approval would have been required simply by converting the device with modified switches, dismantling and assembling it without a tongue and groove connected to a metal plate, etc. the now secondary argument that the device was only tested and approved for living space, which is taking a back seat in view of the situation.

The expert Anton Muhr already recognized that in addition to the VDE, approval from the TÜV would also have been necessary. Because there was a draft in the driver's cab on the valley side, an unannounced timber sheeting was subsequently installed there by the operator, which was stuffed with rock wool . According to expert Muhr, this rock wool was sucked in by the heater. In 2010 he said in a broadcast on ORF regarding the conversion of the driver's desk: “That was the big problem. This subsequent heating conversion. And that should have been approved. One should have indicated that a change had been made. The TÜV would have recognized this source of danger and stopped the whole thing. "

The Salzburg Regional Court had expressly stated in the previous main process that the device had the corresponding test marks from VDE and GS and could only be installed in the railway because of this elementary fact, otherwise not. In the report, the investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor kept the Salzburg court's own words in mind "(...) that only a fan heater with a certification mark was allowed to be installed". A representative of the VDE expressly stated for the report: "The device has been structurally changed, so the approval of the mark expires." The report sums up: "The fan heater Hobby TLB should not have been installed in the funicular because the test marks that were assigned to it as Living space heater were assigned, were no longer valid ”.

Alleged delivery without original packaging and manuals

A central argument, which was repeatedly used against the manufacturer Fakir, was that the four fan heaters, two of them for the driver's cabs on the valley side and two for the driver's cabs on the mountain side, had been delivered without manuals, which meant that nobody could have suspected that the devices were unsuitable. This claim was unequivocally refuted in the report.

The court in Salzburg only found that the railway designer or supplier, Swoboda, did not deliver any manuals to the Gletscherbahnen: "According to the court's findings, the Gletscherbahnen did not have any operating instructions for the Fakir Hobby TLB device." Swoboda had however, ordered the four fan heaters from a wholesaler named Höller . The state police department in Stuttgart expressly states that the devices from Fakir to dealers such as the Höller company are : “After the final assembly and technical inspection of the assembled devices, they are packaged, provided with guarantee documents and operating instructions and finally sealed. This seal is intended to document to the future buyer that the packaging has not been opened since final assembly at the factory. ”It follows that Fakir had delivered these four individual devices to the wholesaler in their original packaging and sealed with manuals. There is no indication in the Salzburg judgment that Fakir would have delivered the devices without accessories, etc., which was repeatedly brought up by representatives of this argument. The Salzburg judgment was somewhat vague: "It could no longer be clarified whether these devices, the fan heaters, were originally packaged by the Höller company and sent to the Swoboda company and whether an operating manual was attached." This raises the suspicion that Swoboda disposed of the instructions after installing the devices and did not hand them over to the glacier lifts. In addition, the packaging bore a "red [...] label" stating that the devices were only suitable for "residential purposes". “This is clearly visible from three sides of the packaging,” the investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office stated.

In response to the argument that the responsibility lies only with the Swoboda company, the investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor hold the Gletscherbahn over to: “[…] [T] he Gletscherbahn Kaprun AG could have ensured that the unsuitable device was replaced. None of this happened, although the Gletscherbahn had its own electricians, i.e. specialists. ”The devices in the driver's cabs on the mountain side were actually replaced by the glacier railways in the spring of 2000, before the accident, and it was noted:“ There were driver's cabs on the mountain side the originally installed Hobby TLB fan heaters have been replaced by Stiebel Eltron fan heaters . ”Incidentally, the devices on the mountain side were not built into the desk, but hung in their original state on the side facing the driver.

Alleged flammability of the plastic

The regional court in Salzburg found in the process that “the plastic housing of the fan heater started to burn, did not go out itself and continued to burn. This means that the properties of the fan heater specified in the VDE test reports with regard to fire safety were not met. ”The result of the investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor is different. They found that only with the first application for approval at the VDE in 1991 "the front part of the Hobby TLB would not have passed the needle flame test", but this was corrected by a different plastic: "On April 23, 1992 the flammability test was repeated and passed". The investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office state: "The fan heater Hobby TLB was therefore flame retardant in accordance with the VDE guidelines and in this sense intrinsically safe." Furthermore, it is stated: "The German Plastics Institute has determined in its report that the one for the rear Housing part used plastic corresponds to the highest fire protection class for such plastics. "

Alleged construction flaws and damage

Another important argument against Fakir was always that "The choice of the injection point for this fan heater [...] should have represented a real and serious production fault, but also a design fault [...]", as the Salzburg judgment says. Regarding the expert Maurer, who claims to have found out this error, the investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office stated in advance: “During the investigation, it emerged that the expert Maurer is not an expert on plastic issues. As such, he was never entered on the Austrian list of court experts. "

During the preparation of his report for the court, the expert Maurer discovered damage to the "mounting dome" of the fan heater from the counter-train, which the latter also photographed. Maurer noted, for example, that the fastening screws of the heater star had broken out of the rear wall of the fan.

Based on the condition of the device, the expert Maurer concluded that there must have been a design flaw which caused the damage to the device. What does not fit together with these observations made by the expert in 2002, however, is the fact that the damage to the device during the securing in Kaprun was not understandable for his colleagues. So it is recorded: “Dipl.-lng. During his interrogation on October 4, 2006 in Vienna, Bind stated that he had not noticed any damage that day, especially in the area of the fortification dome. He could not understand the pictures in the Maurer report. ”The following is also stated:“ According to the statements of the experts Muhr and Lange, who owned the fan heater in March 2001, the fan heater was intact. Mrs. StA Danninger-Soriat also confirmed that the fan heater was still undamaged at the on-site visit during the trial in Linz in July 2002. "

Evidence of the undamaged fan heater was already available from the KTZ in Vienna, but, as with expert Anton Muhr, they did not release the images as expert Maurer needed them. Almost two years had passed between the securing of the device and the inspection by the expert.

The expert Maurer assumed that he had received the fan heater from the train in its original condition, but this was not the case. The surveyor Geishofer, like many other investigators and other surveyors, had the fan heater temporarily in their possession. With this change of ownership, the device was badly affected. The expert Geishofer found, among other things, with regard to the often examined device from the return train: "The rotary knobs - on and off switch, temperature regulator - were missing" and further "The motorized star heater unit was loose in the housing." The star heater was already attached "Torn in a star shape" and the second "no longer available". He also stated: “The star heater itself was mechanically deformed in several places”, and in particular: “The torn suspension of the star heater unit was initially attributed to damage that could have occurred in the course of transport or the dismantling and inspections carried out . "

When handing over the device, the appraiser Geishofer did not inform the appraiser Maurer that, to his own knowledge, the damage was not caused by the heater itself. The expert Maurer neither had photos of the original condition nor did he know that the device was originally undamaged. Probably because of this, he concluded that it must have been a design flaw. This involved several retrospective damage.

After elaborating these connections, the investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office stated: “Based on these findings, the result of Maurer's report must be questioned, because he assumed false assumptions. He was of the opinion that the fastening dome broke while it was still installed, which was demonstrably not the case. "

The investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor noted: "This shows that the experts and forensic technicians involved in the proceedings must not have worked together, communicated and exchanged in the close manner required for such a process."

Finally, reference is made to the specially arranged investigation by the German Plastics Institute in Darmstadt (DKI), which, in addition to various methods, also examined the housing of the fan heater using "X-ray computed tomography and polarized transmitted light microscopy" and came to the conclusion that "with regard to production of the plastic housing, no production errors are recognizable and that the housing parts, both in terms of the plastic used and the construction, correspond to the then and current state of the art. "

Search of the house at the company Fakir

In order to ensure that Fakir was not hiding anything with regard to production errors, a search warrant was issued by the Heilbronn public prosecutor, and the entire company building was searched. The result of the search of the relevant files was: “An evaluation of these files did not reveal any process-relevant findings […].” With reference to the Maurer report, the LPD Stuttgart stated: “There were also no documents whatsoever for the formation of weld lines in the area of the fastening dome. "

The LPD Stuttgart finally stated that "the questions listed in the search warrant" to Fakir were answered in writing by the latter and came to the conclusion: "This letter did not result in any further investigations either."

Vehicle or driving equipment?

It was also argued in the judgment that the Gletscherbahn is not actually a vehicle under Austrian law, which means that the installation of a living area fan heater, such as that made by the manufacturer Fakir, was legitimate. In the operating instructions it was specifically pointed out that the device was unsuitable for vehicles. As already stated above, however, from the point of view of the investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office, the question of the concept of the vehicle as such is becoming obsolete, since the modification of the device alone would invalidate its VDE approval. Because even in the opinion of the Salzburg judgment itself, the device would generally no longer have been suitable for installation without a valid test mark. However, the VDE was not consulted in the process at that time. The court declared the certification marks valid. The investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor allow themselves a somewhat ironic reference to German law with reference to the discussion about the legal concept of the vehicle in Austria: “The view of the court in Salzburg that the trains of the Gletscherbahn Kaprun AG are not involved about vehicles, may be due to special definitions common in Austria. According to the usual definitions in Germany, the trains of the Gletscherbahn Kaprun AG were clearly vehicles. ”However, this statement should not be understood as if the investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor wanted to put German law over Austrian law.

Even before the accident in Kaprun, there was an EU ropeway directive in which, with reference to funiculars, vehicles were clearly and repeatedly mentioned (unlike in Austrian law at the time, according to which a funicular was not a vehicle in the traditional sense). In the directive from the year 2000 one reads, among other things, of "vehicles from funicular railways". However, as stated in the verdict, the violation of this guideline, which was admitted by the court, does not represent any criminal liability in the respective EU member state. The non-binding nature of EU provisions or guidelines in the member states of the EU was dated from European Court of Justice decided itself.

Proof of hydraulic oil

The judgment also stated that there was no hydraulic oil in the heater's housing, a key point. The investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office state: “Dr. In his report, Ackermann came to the conclusion that hydraulic oil could be detected on the larch wood board as well as on the back of the fan heater housing. but only on the outside, as it turned out. It is also stated: “Mr. Mag. Dipl.-lng. Udo Geishofer noticed on October 10, 2002 that red, sticky deposits were visible on the underside of the rear wall, particularly in the area of the power connection cable. These are the same applications that were already recognizable in the pictures of the KTZ from the tunnel from November 2000. ”A former trial expert testified before the German authorities that he had not examined the adhesions identified in his expert opinion; this was not his area of expertise. What the appraisers appointed by the court did not do, the investigators of the Heilbronn public prosecutor caught up. "The investigations by the KTI of the LKA Stuttgart have shown that in the inside of the fan heater, exactly where reddish applications can be seen in the pictures of the KTZ, residues of hydraulic oil were found - 6 years after the accident." As already stated in general, the cause of the conflagration of November 11, 2000 was not a leak in the hydraulic system, no hydraulic oil leaked […]. ”Pictures from the KTZ also show that the oil was exactly where it was from the start was found by investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office, who stated: “6 years after the accident, applications with a reddish shine can still be seen at the point where the electric cable of the fan heater is led into the interior of the housing. [...] Evidence of hydraulic oil wetting could be provided on the outside as well as on the inside. ”A forensic technician from the KTZ who was questioned later said:“ At that time I did not pay attention to oil in detail. ”This contradicts other statements like that Investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office state: “The statement by the expert Bind that he did not pay any attention to oil at the time, contradicts a statement by the expert Muhr. According to his statement, the KTZ discussed oil in connection with the radiant heater as the cause of the fire at the beginning of the investigation. [...] The content of this statement was confirmed [...] several times by Mrs. StA'in Danninger-Soriat [...]. "

Unsuitable power connection of the fan heater

The fan heater was also permanently wired to the set's power supply, while the operating instructions clearly state: “The device is not suitable for connection to permanently installed cables. [...] After use or before repair and maintenance work, pull out the power plug. ”Since the fan heaters only received electricity at the mountain and valley stations, the safety temperature limiter was reset every time the station was undocked so that any overheating could not be noticed . In the investigation report of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office it is stated: "Here, too, the question arises why the employees of Swoboda and Gletscherbahn Kaprun AG did not recognize this weak point, although, as the court found, only specialists and experts were at work."

Disregard of (safety) technical principles

An expert from Dekra Dortmund stated: “At the time of the reconstruction of the railway in Austria there were no special regulations that dealt with funiculars. In my opinion, the general rules of technology were violated during the conversion, this can also be found in the report (meaning his own report). "The most important points are:" Immediate proximity between the fan heater as a possible ignition source, the one behind and below High pressure oil lines and wooden installation, the use of GRP (glass fiber reinforced plastic) instead of the approved aluminum, the lack of opening options for the doors for the passengers, the lack of fire-fighting options for passengers, the lack of communication between passengers and operating staff, etc. a. “The Salzburg court did not seem to be interested in these logical and obvious technical principles.

Fundamental deficiencies in the railway were not only discovered by the Heilbronn public prosecutor and other institutions. Even the expert Maurer, who considered the fan heater to be a general faulty design, noted in the Salzburg procedure that a suitable fan heater for the railway had to be made of metal and not plastic. However, this statement was not recorded in the court record.

Inaccurate tests of the devices

The annual maintenance work on the glacier railways is also criticized, in which the fans were not examined carefully enough. It was noted, "[...] that at least the oil load inside the heater would have been detectable during the overhaul work." When asked why the devices were not opened for testing, a plant electrician merely replied: "We did not consider that necessary . "

Expert Muhr is confirmed

At the end of the approximately fifty-four-page report, the main reviewer, who was dismissed during the main trial, and Anton Muhr, who has since died and who fell ill with severe depression in the course of the trial, should also experience belated satisfaction. Here, the investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office explicitly describe the “correctness of the expert report by Muhr” in their report.

Criticism of later reviewers

With regard to the expert opinion used in the process, which, unlike Anton Muhr's, spoke of damage to the fan heater itself and which denied any presence of hydraulic oil, it is finally stated in the investigation report of the Heilbronn public prosecutor that "the expert opinion that ultimately led to the acquittal, assumed that the conditions were incorrect. "

Justice hinders investigations

It is also pointed out that the permission to testify for KTZ employees was deliberately restricted by the Austrian judiciary when investigators from the Heilbronn public prosecutor wanted to question them. For example, "the permission to testify for the record manager at the time [...] was so restricted that he was only allowed to state his own perceptions."

In addition, the investigators from Heilbronn were not given the housing parts of the fan heater for their investigations that had been used in the Salzburg reports to justify production errors in the devices of the Fakir company. These had been removed from this before the handover to the investigators.

In the investigation report of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office, the twisting of facts by the Central Criminal Police Office (KTZ) from Vienna, which was sent to Kaprun on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior and which, instead of finding out the cause of the fire, broke off its work prematurely.

In view of the large number of foreign victims, the public prosecutor and examining magistrate decided that external, non-governmental experts should be entrusted with taking the findings. The fire experts of the KTZ should then work on this, but refused to cooperate.

The KTZ sent the fan heater to Vienna for examination immediately after it was seized in Kaprun. Like all other evidence, the device should be examined by the external expert Anton Muhr as soon as possible in Salzburg on the instructions of the Salzburg examining magistrate. A few weeks later, however, the Vienna KTZ sent the device to the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) Salzburg instead of Anton Muhr, without informing him, let alone the responsible investigating judge or public prosecutor. Because of this behavior and the ongoing suppression of evidence, three Viennese officials were reported and the head of the KTZ, Volker Edlinger, was suspended on suspicion of abuse of office. But now the LKA Salzburg also concealed the receipt of the device from the above-mentioned authorities and only released the fan heater several months after receipt in March 2001. At that time, as head of the LKA Salzburg and chief investigator of Kaprun, Franz Lang was responsible for this . Unlike his Viennese colleague Edlinger, however, he was not prosecuted for this.

Because the Vienna KTZ, despite repeated requests by the Salzburg investigating judge, did not cooperate with the external expert Muhr and withheld evidence, the Salzburg Regional Court even considered having a house search carried out at the Ministry of the Interior in Vienna. However, because of concerns about damage to the republic's image, the Salzburg court decided against it.

Unsuitable fan heater as the final cause

In conclusion, it was stated: "As a result of the investigations by the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office, it can be stated that the accident on November 11, 2000 could have been avoided if the Swoboda company had installed vehicle-compatible fan heaters that were available on the market."

In relation to the new evidence that emerged from the investigations of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office, the last sentence stated: "Thus, a different outcome of the process would have been expected."

Expert commission found no failures

A few days after the accident, the then minister of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology , Monika Forstinger , presented an international commission of experts with the task of finding out whether the accident could have been prevented in Kaprun. This commission started its work in November 2000, and on 11 December 2001 it presented a final report. As was also the case in the Salzburg process, the team of experts stated that everything had been done correctly in Kaprun in terms of fire protection and that no one could have expected such a disaster to happen. It is said that “[…] the accident in Kaprun represents a risk that is new to this extent and has not yet been recognized. [...] Accordingly, rescue or self-rescue concepts, as provided in newer railway or road tunnels, do not form an appropriate basis for the system design of tunnel funicular railways. " had approved.

This result contradicts the results of the Heilbronn public prosecutor's office established years later. The investigation report refers to the safety concepts of that time in Switzerland and France, where strict fire protection regulations were already in place in funiculars in 1988. The existing fire protection regulations “go far beyond the safety precautions that Gletscherbahn Kaprun AG has built into their funicular railway.”

Although this commission of experts had officially not found any deficiencies in Kaprun, it submitted numerous suggestions for changes to the safety of tunnel cable cars. These proposals were later enshrined in law.

The letter of recommendation contains suggestions such as "[...] z. B. Fire alarm system with extraction system for early fire detection in the driver's cabs, automatic fire extinguishing systems for rapid extinguishing assistance in the electrical engineering area and in the driver's desk, improvement of the communication between the car attendant and the passengers, visual monitoring of the passenger area ”.

The fact that these life-saving systems were later prescribed by a decision of the government at the time shows a clear contradiction between the official representation of politics and the judiciary, according to which there were no safety deficiencies in Kaprun, while numerous safety devices were required by law after the accident which presumably would have saved the lives of the victims of Kaprun.

The then public prosecutor Danninger-Soriat suspected a controlled action behind the result of the expert commission, which exonerated politics, and criticized this in book 155 Kriminalfall Kaprun with the words: "Acquittal for the Ministry of Transport and acquittal for the Supreme Railway Authority." as well as the German media repeatedly speculated about whether politics and, indirectly, the economy had not actively tried to steer the process in their favor. These speculations are mainly based on obstruction by the judiciary, which has been criticized by many involved bodies.

consequences

In Austria, the Kaprun Gletscherbahn is legally subject to the Railway and Motor Vehicle Liability Act (EKHG). As a result, the company is liable under certain circumstances and within certain limits regardless of fault.

Numerous other laws and regulations in the cable car sector were subsequently changed.

After the wreckage of the two train sets, the glacier kite and the Kitzsteingams , were returned by the judiciary in January 2006, the Gletscherbahn AG considered reactivating the glacier kite as a load carrier. Around 600 tons of drinks and food should be transported up to the restaurant on the Kitzsteinhorn and 130 tons of rubbish back down to the valley. However, these considerations were rejected due to a good logistics system.

The Kitzsteingam train set was scrapped in spring 2006. A restart of the funicular for passenger transport is not planned. The steel bridge and the rest of the entire funicular system were removed in the summer of 2014 as part of several construction works. Today the tunnel is only used for energy supply and sanitary facilities. Damage to all lines in the tunnel was repaired, after which the tunnel was firmly closed.

The article Tunnel fire: Justice for Kaprun by Hubertus Godeysen describes the events from the day of the disaster until 2009.

In 2010, several Austrian members of the National Council submitted an inquiry to the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology, in which a number of inconsistencies and peculiarities (suitability of the experts, missing evidence, obstruction of investigations, missing information, etc.) as well as various technical issues were addressed. Most of the points were not clarified.

At the suggestion of the Ministry of Justice, a so-called mediation commission was established. As part of this commission, in which survivors' representatives also worked, a voluntary compensation payment to the surviving dependents was agreed for the first time in the history of Austria. A total of 13.9 million euros were made available by the Kaprun Gletscherbahnen, Generali Insurance and the Republic of Austria and paid out to the relatives.

The aftercare group for the German survivors of the cable car accident in Kaprun is led by Sybille Jatzko on a voluntary basis.

The main defender in the Kaprun trial, Wolfgang Brandstetter , was Austrian Minister of Justice from December 2013 to December 2017, the defender of the responsible operations manager of the Gletscherbahn, Wilfried Haslauer , since June 2013 Governor of the State of Salzburg , and the then chief investigator and police major, Franz Lang , since December 2008 Police General and Head of the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office .

The Kaprun 2 glacier lift was not put back into operation, partially dismantled and replaced by several new lifts .

memorial

On November 11, 2004, a memorial to the victims was officially inaugurated. The elongated cuboids made of exposed concrete and glass steles are located opposite the valley station of the glacier lifts. The different colors of the glass strips should symbolize the individual people. The individual glass slots are each dedicated to a specific person. Each slit of light stands as a symbol for a life. The deceased left behind more than 500 dependents, 49 of them children.

Memorial at the valley station of the Kitzsteinhorn with the disused Gletscherbahn 2 in the background

Inside view of the memorial, each color represents a life

Names of victims

Christian Aigner, 27
Manfred Aigner, 27
Carrie Baker, Jan.
Johann Bratori, 39
Bianka Bieber, 22nd
Hannes Blaimauer, 32
Roman Boehm, 36
Gudrun Bruckmair, 40
Kevin Challis, 40
Jakob Decker, 34
Okihiko Deguchi, 42
Nao Deguchi, 13
Johann Demmelbauer, 49
Christopher Denk, 7
Franz Denk, 33
Josef Dorner, 43
Alfred Eidenberger, 68
Alexander Eismann, 21
Bettina Emrich, 34
Petra Falk, 25
Christian Fellner, 29
Rastko Ferk, 26
Franz-Leopold Ferstl, 50
Gabriele Fiedler, 35
Heinrich Fiedler, 37
Benjamin Filkil, 15
Paul Filkil, 46
Markus Fink, 23
Ingeborg Fördermayr, 53
Christian Franz, 36
Helmut Freilinger, 62
Erika Friedl, 61
Primoz Galjot, 33
Rok Galjot, 32
Sebastian Geiger, 14
Michael Goodridge, Jan.
Kyle Goodridge, 5th
Michael Goodridge, 36
Jennifer Goodridge, 35
Markus Graßler, 21
Barbara Guggenbichler, 13
Sonja Hager, 22
Heinz Hallwirth, 44
Jens Heukerroth, 36
Markus Hirtl, 16
Daniel Hochreiter, 13
Christian Hulka, 32
Josef Humer, 46
Nina Humer, 21
Karl Huttegger, 24
Elke Innerhuber, 59
Ernst Jenewein, 37
Judith Jindra, 19
Herbert Kaar, 38
Stefan Kaippel, 18
Ayaka Katoono, 14
Wolfgang Kaufl, 41
Erich Kern, 25
Kurt Kiemeswenger, 35
Petra Kiemeswenger, 33
Ursula Kipper, 44
Matthias Kirnbauer, 17
Martin Klapper, 35
Maximilian Klapper, 5th
Patrick Klapper, 15
Horst Konrad, 29
Karin Konrad, 29
Gerhard Lausch, 38
Roman Leitner, 27
Katja Levart, 23
Robert Lindner, 20
Clemens Lueger, 15
Paul Lueger, 17
Franz Lueger, 43
Andreas Maier, 17
Claudia Maijer, 22
Barbara Mayerhofer, 16
Karl Mayerhofer, 37
Sandra Mayr, 22
Ilona Mensikova, 20
Rudolf Mihailovic, 37
Peter Mildner, 40
Gabriele Mildner, 39
Saori Mitsumoto, 22
Peter Mitterberger, 33
Stefan Mohr, 17
Sandra Mülleder, 17
Johann Mülleder, 42
Patrick Mülleder, 9
Ryoko Narahara, 22nd
Rudolf Neumair, 8
Maria Neumann, 58
Wolfgang Neumann, 59
Martin Niederberger, 24
Ingrid Novak, 46
Karl Heinz Novak, 52
Tobias Ohner, 18
Masanobu Onodera, 14th
Hirokazu Oyama, 24
Cornelia Papouschek, 36
Otto Johann Parobek, 34
Radomir Pavlovic, 22
Christian Petermandl, 41
Brigitte Plössner, 42
Günther Plössner, 47
Josef Ponzer, 59
Martin Prohaczka, 25
Andreas Putschögl, 19
Kurt Rehak, 70
Harald Matthias Reiser, 13
Martin Riha, 27
Massimo Danilo Stelio Roiatti, 13
Maki Sakakibara, 25
Stefan Sakrausky, 18
Gerald Sandmayr, 34
Britta Sandmayr, 34
Tomohisa Saze, 14
Dietmar Scharwitzl, 21
Josef Schaupper, 37
Dieter Hubert Schmid, 32
Manfred Schmitt, 46
Marianne Schmitt, 45
Sandra Schmitt , 19
Manfred Schönhuber, 43
Thomas Schönl, 33
Siegfried Schwabl, 26
Nicodemus Seilern-Moy, 15
Patrik Sieger, 24
Andrea Singer, 28
Patrik Smejda, 23
Alexander Smrcek, 28
Katrin Specht, 17
Barry Stadmann, 26
Lorenz Stangl, 21st
Michael Steffo, 28
Roswitha Steiner, 59
Florian Steinl, 22
Matthäus Stieldorf, 18
Sebastian Stöckl, 31
Hilde Christa Strasser, 57
Helmut Strasser, 59
Jens Verhorst, 24
Gerald Voithofer, 14
Hildegard Wagner, 34
Tomoko Wakui, 14
Arthur Warias, 26
Franz Weber-Unger, 18
Anita Wiesnet, 25
Simone Wildenauer, 23
Daniel Wilhelm, 20
Willi Wurzinger, 39
Hermann Wurzinger, 41
Ernst Zauner, 43
Josef Zeilinger, 60
Ingeborg Zeilinger, 60

epilogue

The catastrophe plays a role in the play In the Alps by the writer Elfriede Jelinek .

155 Kriminalfall Kaprun (English title: The Kaprun Cover-Up ) is a non-fiction book available in German and English by the Austrian journalist Hannes Uhl and the German journalist Hubertus Godeysen. The title, published in 2014, deals with the background and investigations into the legal processing of the fire disaster on the Kaprun 2 glacier railway.

The catastrophe is also discussed in the short story Dragon and Fire by the writer Reinhard Wegerth , published in his book When it happened .

literature

Peter Obermüller: Kaprun Documentation of the disaster on the Kitzsteinhorn. Colorama, Salzburg 2004, ISBN 3-901988-32-7 .

Helmut Petrovitsch: Thoughts on the Kaprun case. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 1/2001, pp. 31-33.

Peter Seelmann: The recovery of the Kaprun Kitzsteingams. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International. Issue 7/2001, pp. 315-317.

Hubertus Godeysen, Hannes Uhl: 155 Kriminalfall Kaprun Edition a. Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-99001-076-1 .

Iris Rahlek: Death trip on the Kitzsteinhorn BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2020, ISBN 978-3751923729 .

Movies

Sid Bennett, Paul Bernays: Fire on the Ski Slope. Season 1, episode 8 of the English-language documentary series Seconds Before the Disaster .
André Beaupoil, Thomas Hausner: The Kaprun cable car fire. A film from the ARD series protocol of a catastrophe . Documentary, Germany, BR , 2007.

Web links

Commons : Gletscherbahn Kaprun 2 - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ All acquittals confirmed. In: oesterreich.orf.at. September 27, 2005, accessed December 7, 2018 .

↑ https://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/oesterreich/chronik/338474_Bergung-der-Toten-ablossen.html

↑ Cable car accident: when 155 people died in the Kaprun fire trap - WELT. In: THE WORLD. Retrieved November 5, 2016 .

↑ ^a ^b Media information from the Heilbronn Public Prosecutor of September 25, 2007

↑ ^a ^b Answer to Parliamentary Question 3962 / J 2009 (PDF; 37 kB)

↑ ^a ^b acquittal for God . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 2009 ( online ).

↑ The process around Kaprun begins - derStandard.at. Retrieved November 15, 2018 .

↑ https://www.vienna.at/hauptgutachter-ber-kaprun-process-heizlfter-war-tickende-zeitbombe/1814867

^ Acquittals in the Kaprun trial. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 4/2004, ISSN 1421-2811 , p. 169.

↑ The investigation report

↑ The fan heater

↑ The Kaprun judicial thriller - The Kaprun judicial thriller - 10 years after the catastrophe of November 7, 2010. Accessed on September 8, 2019 .

↑ EUR-Lex - 32016R0424 - EN - EUR-Lex. Retrieved September 8, 2019 .

↑ DIRECTIVE 2000/9 / EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of March 20, 2000 on cable cars for passenger transport. (PDF) Retrieved September 8, 2019 .

↑ The hydraulic oil

↑ news networld Internet Service GmbH: - After the Kaprun trial: New preliminary surveys against KTZ officials. January 24, 2004, accessed October 31, 2020 .

↑ Victoria Abulesz: ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4: "20 Years of the Kaprun Disaster - The Silence of Men", on November 11th at 10:25 pm on ATV. October 21, 2020, accessed on October 31, 2020 (Austrian German).

↑ Hannes Uhl: And nobody was to blame . Ed .: Die Zeit. 45th edition. October 29, 2020, p. 18 .

↑ Hannes Uhl: Gletscherbahn Kaprun: And nobody was to blame. In: The time . October 31, 2020, accessed October 31, 2020 .

↑ The Expert Commission

↑ Parliamentary question of 19 July 2002 3908 / AB XXI.GP. Retrieved September 8, 2019 .

↑ "155 - Kaprun criminal case"

↑ Heilbronn Public Prosecutor's Office: Investigation by the Heilbronn Public Prosecutor's Office, Az: 21Js27386 / 05 . Ed .: LPD Stuttgart. Stuttgart March 27, 2007, p. 54 .

↑ Contribution by an employee of the Kaprun Alpinforum glacier lifts

^ Hubertus Godeysen: Tunnel fire: Justice for Kaprun. In: Die Zeit No. 33/2009, PDF - the HTML version has the wrong date, November 9, 2000.

↑ How Austrians passed the blame on to Germans: Kaprun tragedy - WELT. In: THE WORLD. Retrieved November 5, 2016 .

↑ Three years after the Kaprun disaster - Three years after the Kaprun disaster of July 29, 2003. Retrieved June 9, 2020 .

↑ am-plan: The Kaprun memorial , the architect's brainstorming , accessed on August 16, 2015.

↑ http://www.hufu.at/arthur.warias/jan02_01.htm

↑ Stadttheater Ingolstadt | Program | Pieces | Info. In: www.theater.ingolstadt.de. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on November 11, 2015 .

↑ Hannes Uhl, Hubertus Godeysen: 155: The Kaprun Cover-Up . Editions A Verlag, 2020, ISBN 978-3-99001-092-1 ( google.at [accessed November 8, 2020]).

↑ 8 - seconds before the accident - fire on the ski slope. Retrieved September 16, 2019 .

↑ 2 - Log of a disaster - The Kaprun cable car fire. Retrieved September 16, 2019 .

47.225645 12.72072Coordinates: 47 ° 13 ′ 32.3 " N , 12 ° 43 ′ 14.6" E