Suspension railway accident in Wuppertal in 1999

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The accident site on April 12, 1999

The suspension railway accident of Wuppertal took place on 12 April 1999 on the suspension railway track near the monorail station Robert-Daum-Platz . When car 4 of the type GTW 72 derailed , five people were killed and 47 were seriously injured. It is the worst accident in the history of the Wuppertal suspension railway and so far the only one with fatal consequences.

the accident

The articulated train drove around 05:45, as the first train of the day, at route kilometer 7 in Wuppertal - Elberfeld at a speed of around 50 km / h into a steel component ("claw") temporarily attached to the rail on the supporting frame. During this impact, the first of four bogies tore from the roof of the vehicle, which then leaned to the right, derailed and fell into the Wupper from a height of almost ten meters . The front part of the train fell on a district heating line bridge that crossed the Wupper at the site of the accident. The torn-off bogie, which was initially left behind on the supporting structure, fell immediately afterwards onto the train lying in the Wupper and broke through the car body.

Course of the rescue measures

The scene of the accident in 2005, you can see the district heating pipeline bridge

After the loud bang, employees of the neighboring company ELBA climbed over scaffolding into the river and began to rescue the accident victims. The injured driver of the suspension railway also immediately helped to rescue the passengers . A resident who informed the police via an emergency call initially earned laughter, according to his own statements, as a fall of a train on the suspension railway was considered unthinkable.

After all, more than 150 helpers from fire and rescue services with twelve emergency doctors were on duty to rescue the injured at the difficult-to-access area and to provide medical care. Even pastors were alerted as Notfallseelsorger to care for the under shock people. The injured were taken to two neighboring buildings and a tent that the fire brigade had set up in an underpass. Further collection points for the injured were set up in a factory and in a quickly assembled tent city in a parking lot. The conference rooms on the ground floor of a bank became the first hospital. The nearby Ferdinand Sauerbruch Clinic took in the first patients. Robert-Daum-Platz, where Bundesstraße 7 and Landesstraße 427 intersect, became the landing pad for three rescue helicopters.

In the Municipal Clinic Barmen all routine operations have been moved and kept all available doctors for emergency. Three hours after the accident, all 47 injured with broken bones, bruises and cuts were housed in hospitals in Wuppertal, Remscheid and Solingen.

Two men could only be recovered dead from the wreck; the body of a woman was washed away from the Wupper and was only found hours after the accident. Two other people later died from their injuries. In all five cases the death occurred as a result of the serious injuries sustained as a result of the fall of the suspension railway.

Course of the rescue measures

The affected parts of the scaffolding and the wreckage of the suspension railway were initially confiscated by order of the public prosecutor. The rescue of the downed suspension railway train was prepared on April 13, 1999 and turned out to be very difficult. The previous escape route next to an office and residential building could not be used as a location for the required 300-tonne crane, as an underground car park posed static problems. On the other bank of the Wupper, the yard of the ELBA company offered itself, although direct access to the accident site was blocked by a production building. The crane was brought into position there during the day and an excavator was lowered into the Wupper. In preparation for the actual salvage, the steel construction of the district heating pipeline that the suspension railway hit had to be cut off. In the meantime, several halogen spotlights have been mounted on the suspension railway frame and a police light mast car has been brought into position. When it got dark, the scene of the accident was brightly lit.

Work continued on the night of April 14, 1999. First three chassis, each weighing approx. 3.5 tons, were unscrewed from the 22-ton articulated train. During the course of the day, these parts were lifted by the crane over the ELBA factory halls onto a semi-trailer truck parked in the blocked Ernststrasse. The fourth chassis, which was torn off in the accident and crashed into the cabin of the suspension railway, had to be recovered later. Now the first large rear part of the articulated train could be released and lifted out of the Wupper bed. In this way, the suspension railway train was divided into three parts by the evening and transported to a hall of the Generaloberst Hoepner barracks on Lichtscheid . The rail section of the suspension railway structure to which the fateful claw was attached was removed and secured on Friday, April 16, 1999.

Investigations

Since November 1997, as part of the renovation work for the 100th anniversary of the suspension railway (2001), the entire supporting structure has been completely replaced on weekends. The steel claws mounted on the guardrail served the stability of the scaffolding during this work. The night before the accident, construction work was ended, during which parts of the scaffolding a few pillars away from the accident site were replaced. The work was so delayed that the construction site was only cleared ten minutes before the start of the first runway from the direction of Vohwinkel . The component had been forgotten in the track .

The TÜV Rheinland / Berlin-Brandenburg was commissioned all processes of reconstruction at the section Pestalozzistraße / Ohligsmühle from 9 to 12 April 1999 from start to route clearance and documentation, as well as the existing organization to ensure safe suspension railway operation after completion of recurring construction for to examine and assess the replacement of the suspension railway structure in sections.

In the subsequent process, it became clear that the suspension railway crash was not caused by a technical defect or a system error, but solely due to negligent dismantling work at the end of the construction work that night and insufficient control of this work. A test drive to prevent the accident was neither planned nor required by law.

Legal consequences

In its judgment of 31 January 2002 (4 con 289/01) which were revisions of the convicted defendants of the Federal Court in appeal proceedings rejected as unfounded. The acquittals by the regional court of Wuppertal of the operations manager responsible for the security concept, partly for legal reasons, partly for factual reasons of the accusation of negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm , were lifted. The defendants, who were responsible for the technical railway supervision or for the supervision, their control duties but not exercised properly, were from the district court in each case for involuntary manslaughter in five legally-coinciding cases in coincidence with negligent injury in 37 legally-coinciding cases suspended sentences convicted. The case was referred back to another chamber of the Wuppertal Regional Court with regard to the acquitted defendants . In these proceedings, one of the workers was sentenced to a suspended sentence of 4 months, the proceedings against the other 3 workers were suspended against a fine of 500 euros.

The Wuppertal Stadtwerke AG paid as operator of the monorail around 1.3 million German marks for damages , pain and suffering , healing treatment - and funeral expenses and costs for psychotraumatological help from specialists to the survivors and victims. The total costs incurred by the company as a result of the accident amounted to well over eight million German marks.

Technical consequences

The repair work carried out by the employees of the Wuppertaler Stadtwerke AG suspension railway workshop was preceded by extensive static calculations for the erection of support scaffolding and the effects of the accident on the scaffolding by external engineering offices and experts. Numerous safety checks were carried out, including a special inspection of the entire scaffolding including supports and measurement runs with the five articulated trains that have since been subjected to the main and intermediate inspections. Extensive shunting work in the Vohwinkel and Oberbarmen terminal stations was necessary to bring the trains back into the exit position.

Preparatory work to repair the damaged scaffolding parts at the accident site began on May 31, 1999, after the crane required to replace the scaffolding parts had been set up on the premises of the ELBA company a few days earlier. The actual repair work with the replacement of around five meters of rail supports, running rails and busbars began at noon on June 2, 1999. It is now common practice to carry out test drives after such work, even if these are still not required by law. The suspension railway was resumed on June 8, 1999, around eight weeks after the accident. The crashed car 4 was scrapped after the end of the investigation and not replaced.

Others

The plaque

On April 12, 2000, Wuppertal's mayor, Hans Kremendahl, and the chairman of the Wuppertaler Stadtwerke AG, Rolf Krumsiek, unveiled a plaque commemorating the victims in the Robert-Daum-Platz suspension railway station near the accident site.

swell

literature

Judgments

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Suspension railway crashed into the Wupper ( Memento from May 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Verkehrswirtschaft - press archive
  2. ^ Marie Luise Oertel: The suspension railway of the century . 1st edition. Odenthal 2001, ISBN 3-00-008291-3 , p. 13 .
  3. ^ Suspension railway disaster: A black day for Wuppertal Rheinische Post from April 2, 2004.
  4. ↑ An eerie silence after the accident. In: Der Tagesspiegel from April 12, 1999.
  5. Az. 21 KLs 411 Js 533/99 - 2/00. In: Wuppertal Regional Court .
  6. ^ From the police report www.home.wtal.de April 15, 2000
  7. WSW press information no. 2/99 www.home.wtal.de April 15, 1999
  8. WSW: TÜV report is available - experts on the suspension railway accident of April 12, 1999 www.home.wtal.de June 10, 1999
  9. ^ Accident on the Wuppertal suspension railway - acquittals of four fitters overturned Federal Court of Justice, Press Office of the Federal Court of Justice on January 31, 2002
  10. Wuppertal history, paragraph "Crash of the Wuppertal suspension railway" ( Memento from January 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  11. Memorial plaque for suspension railway victims unveiled. WSW commemorates the worst suspension railway accident exactly one year ago www.home.wtal.de April 12, 2000
  12. Wuppertal suspension railway runs again - trial and test runs successfully completed www.home.wtal.de June 8, 1999
  13. Wuppertal suspension railway runs again - trial and test runs successfully completed www.home.wtal.de June 8, 1999
  14. April 12, 1999 Wuppertal Suspension Railway: Near Robert-Daum-Platz Bahnen in Bergisch
  15. Memorial plaque for suspension railway victims unveiled. WSW commemorates the worst suspension railway accident exactly one year ago www.home.wtal.de April 12, 2000

Coordinates: 51 ° 15 '6.5 "  N , 7 ° 7' 57.7"  E