Millas bus accident

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In the Millas bus accident on December 14, 2017, around 4 p.m., a school bus and a regional train collided at a level crossing in the southern French municipality of Millas near Perpignan . In the accident, 6 out of 23 children and young people were killed on the bus, all others were injured, some seriously. The accident attracted particular attention, apart from the relatively high number of young victims, all of whom came from the same small town, due to contradicting witness statements about the circumstances of the accident.

the accident

Class SNCF Z 7300 multiple units at Villefranche-de-Conflent station (2015); this series also included the train that crashed.

The accident occurred at 4:03 p.m. at a level crossing between Millas and Saint-Féliu-d'Amont not far from Perpignan in the Pyrénées-Orientales department . There the Route départementale 612 crosses the Perpignan – Villefranche-de-Conflent railway . The school bus, which had pupils from the secondary school Collège Christian-Bourquin in Millas on board, who were on their way home, was initially heading east on Chemin du Ralet (D 46). From this he turned left onto the D 612 (Route de Thuir) and immediately crossed the level crossing equipped with automatic half barriers . He was hit by a TER regional train running between Villefranche-de-Conflent and Perpignan and torn in two.

Rescue workers arrived from 4:15 p.m. At 4:30 p.m., the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department triggered a disaster alarm with action plans for the care of many injured people. 95 firefighters, 52 gendarmes and 12 members of the SAMU as well as four rescue helicopters were on duty at the scene of the accident .

Victim

Four of the 23 children and young people on the bus died at the scene of the accident; two others died from their injuries by December 18. Of 17 other injured, five were still in mortal danger at the time. With the exception of the slightly injured bus driver, all injured and dead were 11 to 17 years old and came from the municipality of Saint-Féliu-d'Avall . The injured were taken to the hospitals of Montpellier , Toulouse and Perpignan .

According to media reports, the bus driver, who was 46 at the time of the accident, was still in inpatient psychiatric treatment in February 2018 due to the consequences of the accident.

There were no seriously injured people on the train, which was occupied by around 30 people.

Investigations

The head of the criminal investigation was taken over by the department for investigating major accidents of the Marseille public prosecutor's office . At a first press conference the day after the accident, the Marseilles public prosecutor Xavier Tarabeux announced that the speed of the train at the time of the accident was around 70 km / h and was thus well below the maximum permissible value of 100 km / h at that point. The speed of the bus was very low. He ruled out excessive speed of one of the two vehicles. Blood samples taken from the drivers of the vehicles involved immediately after the accident showed no alcohol content.

On the question of whether the barriers to the level crossing were open or closed when the bus entered the bus, the testimonies contradicted each other, namely those of the surviving passengers of the bus as well as those of several uninvolved eyewitnesses, including inmates of another school bus following the accident vehicle . The day after the accident, testimony from 14 witnesses was available, a majority of whom stated that the half-barriers of the level crossing were closed, but a minority said the opposite. The driver of the bus assured that the barriers were open and the warning lights were not active. The two locomotive drivers present in the driver's cab of the TER stated that the bus had pushed the barrier away, passed it and then drove on to the level crossing.

As public prosecutor Tarabeux announced on December 17, 2017, the first technical investigations had also shown that the joint unit of the barrier was in the closed state.

A preliminary investigation was opened against the bus driver on December 20, 2017 on suspicion of negligent homicide.

In addition to the Marseille public prosecutor's office, the SNCF railway company and BEA-TT , the state investigation agency for land traffic accidents, initiated investigations.

At the end of December 2017, the result of the internal investigation by the SNCF became known. Accordingly, the technical facilities at the level crossing would have worked perfectly at the time of the accident. In particular, the barriers were closed, the red light system and the acoustic warning signal also worked. The train was nine minutes late.

At the beginning of October 2018, the results of a technical report that had been commissioned by the criminal investigation authorities were made public. After that, the accident was due to human error on the part of the bus driver. This initially accelerated her vehicle to around 12 km / h and then applied emergency braking. The reason for the braking could only have been the obstacle in the form of the closed railway barrier. The driver's lawyer countered that at such a low speed, the braking distance in the event of an emergency stop is nowhere near so long that the bus could have rolled to its position at the time of the collision. A medical report in December 2018 ruled out any influence of the sleeping pill zopiclone , which the bus driver had been prescribed a long time before the accident and also took the evening before the accident, on her ability to drive.

The report on the results of the technical investigation of the accident by the BEA-TT appeared on May 17, 2019. The technical investigations were based on the files of the gendarmerie, investigating magistrate and public prosecutor's office, on expert reports and on several local appointments at the accident site. As before the SNCF and the criminal investigation authorities, the state accident investigation authority came to the conclusion that there had been no malfunctions in the rail traffic, that the safety devices at the level crossing had worked as intended and that the immediate cause of the accident was that the bus was driving on the level crossing despite the barrier being closed and red Flashing light. The bus driver probably did not notice that the level crossing was closed.

Among the factors that could have contributed to the error and thus indirectly to the accident, the BEA-TT first identified the fact that the level crossing had to be crossed immediately after turning left. According to the report, the geometry and design of the junction of the D 46 and the D 612 required the driver's attention of every vehicle the size of the bus during the entire turning process in order to avoid driving over traffic islands and sidewalks. This inevitably reduces attention to the level crossing as the vehicle approaches it. In particular, the result of an inspection of the level crossing in 2009 is obviously wrong, according to which the crossing is "sufficiently far away from points worth mentioning, in particular of the type of intersection or confluence", because there is only one intersection on both sides of the level crossing 25 m to the transition. When the driver looked to the left when she passed the traffic sign give way at the junction, the red flashing light of the level crossing could have been partially covered by a wooden post. When the bus driver finished the turning maneuver, her vehicle was on the D 612 parallel to the lane and she was able to look forward again, the closed barrier of the level crossing was already in the blind spot in front of the bus and was there for them The driver was no longer visible. She probably did not notice that the bus knocked over the barrier due to the large mass of the vehicle. In addition, the bus driver crossed the level crossing six times a day, but never had to stop there before to let a train pass.

consequences

On the day of the accident, the French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne went to the scene of the accident. The school from which the injured persons came only opened its doors on the day after the accident to provide psychological support for classmates, parents and teachers.

On January 2, 2018, Guillaume Pepy , President of the SNCF, announced that his company was looking for ways to make level crossings safer. In particular, a new type of radar system is being developed that will detect the presence of vehicles at crossings, whereupon the power supply will be interrupted. These systems are already being tested in six places, Pepy said, but pointed out that they could not have prevented the Millas accident because the bus entered the level crossing practically at the same time as the train. Pepy also suggested expanding the red light systems for road traffic and adding radar systems to punish violations.

The level crossing over Départementstraße 612 was only reopened to road traffic on August 22, 2018, more than eight months after the accident. The Perpignan – Villefranche-de-Conflent railway was out of service well over a year after the accident; Association of rail users expressed the suspicion that the investigations were only a pretext for the preparation of a final closure of the line by the SNCF. At the end of October 2019, the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department finally announced that the reopening was planned for the second half of March 2020.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Tian: Photo of the train involved in the accident. Twitter , December 15, 2017, accessed July 11, 2018.
  2. ↑ Julien Marion, Laure Moysset: Drame de Millas: l'enquête se focalise sur le trajet du bus. In: lindependant.fr . May 8, 2019, accessed May 8, 2019 (French).
  3. ↑ a b c d French school bus cut in two in rail crash. In: bbc.com . December 15, 2017, accessed July 8, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c d "On a entendu le train thunder plusieurs coups de klaxon": jeudi, 16h03, un TER percute un bus scolaire à Millas. In: francetvinfo.fr . December 15, 2017, accessed on July 8, 2018 (French, updated December 16, 2017).
  5. ↑ Cinq mois après le drame de Millas, les usagers demandent la réouverture de la ligne de TER. In: ladepeche.fr . May 9, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 (French).
  6. ^ Collision à Millas: le bilan s'alourdit à six morts. In: rtl.fr . December 18, 2017, accessed July 8, 2017 (French).
  7. ↑ a b c Mathilde Ceilles: Que sait-on de l'accident à Millas au lendemain du drame? In: 20minutes.fr . December 15, 2017, accessed July 8, 2018 (French).
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Où en est l'enquête sur la collision de Millas? In: francetvinfo.fr . January 5, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 (French).
  9. ^ A b Accident de Millas: la conductrice maintient sa version des faits. In: lexpress.fr . February 21, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 (French).
  10. ↑ Une collégienne raconte le drame de la barrière SNCF de Millas. In: lexpress.fr . February 14, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 (French).
  11. ↑ Drame de Millas: le report internal de la SCNF dévoilé. In: ladepeche.fr . December 31, 2017, accessed July 8, 2018 (French).
  12. ↑ Olivier Le Creurer: Accident de bus à Millas: la responsabilité de la conductrice engagée selon des expertises techniques. In: france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr . October 5, 2018, accessed December 23, 2018 (French).
  13. ↑ Josette Sanna: Drame de Millas: selon une nouvelle expertise, les somnifères ne seraient pas en cause. In: france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr . December 17, 2018, accessed December 23, 2018 (French).
  14. ↑ a b Laura Causanillas: Drame de Millas - Visibilité réduite, manœuvre, configuration des lieux: le rapport qui dévoile "le scenario le plus probable". In: lindependant.fr . May 17, 2019, accessed May 18, 2019 (French).
  15. ^ A b Sophie Babey: Accident de Millas: pourquoi la conductrice n'aurait rien vu, rien entendu, selon le rapport d'enquête. In: lindependant.fr . May 17, 2019, accessed May 18, 2019 (French).
  16. ^ Collision de Millas: the SNCF tests of the "radar" pour surveillers les passages à level. In: francetvinfo.fr . January 2, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 (French).
  17. ↑ Millas: réouverture du passage à level huit mois après la collision mortelle. In: leparisien.fr . August 22, 2018, accessed on September 23, 2018 (French).
  18. ↑ Laura Meunier: Vers une régression de la line Perpignan - Villefranche? In: lindependant.fr . December 1, 2018, accessed December 23, 2018 (French).
  19. ↑ A Millas, la ligne SNCF doit rouvrir "la seconde quinzaine de mars". In: 20minutes.fr . October 23, 2019, accessed November 5, 2019 (French).

Coordinates: 42 ° 41 ′ 8 "  N , 2 ° 42 ′ 14"  E