Ábel Fortes, Garzón’s trainer, explained that the driver did not receive specific training for the road on which the accident occurred
A chief train engineer, familiar with the AV082 line where the Alvia accident occurred at the A Grandeira curve in Santiago, stated on Tuesday that “you could reach 200 kilometers per hour” at the curve “without violating any side sign” and that this point was dangerous, something that was “on everyone’s lips.”
This has been declared by Manuel Mato Varela, the first witness today in this day at the hearing of the trial of the accident of the Alviawhich resumed at 9:30 a.m. in the City of Culture of Santiago de Compostela.
Mato Varela, who is a chief train engineer, Alvia train driver and knowledgeable about the AV082 line, has been proposed as a witness by the accused engineer’s lawyer, Francisco Jose Garzon.
This witness, who has worked as a train driver for Renfe since 1983 and in the Galician community since 1987, has categorically declared that the A Grandeira curve was “dangerous” and that he was aware of the email in the form of an alert sent by the head driver of Ourense José Ramón Iglesias Mazaira, in which he warned of the risk of the curve.
He also pointed out that it was something that It was “on everyone’s lips” and that he believes that the entire squad knew it.
“We all saw what was happening on that curve,” he assured when asked by Garzón Amo’s lawyer.
After questions from the defendant driver’s lawyer, it was the turn of the Prosecutor’s Office, which has insisted on the training received by the train drivers and on whether this focused on the “critical” or “key” points of the track.
Mato has declared that they were told that they should have “the appropriate reference to stop” but that it was not a specific reference: “You had to tie the males just in case, They told us that we had to stop ahead of time,” he assured.
As he has expressed, in the formation they did not tell him “a specific point” to initiate braking before entering the curve.
“Each machinist is a world. Each one takes his references,” he declared, and later added that there are those who took as a reference “houses” and others that did it with the advanced signal E Prima 7.
The judge, María Elena Fernández Currás, has intervened at this moment, in which she has asked why, if there were no concrete references and the signage was not correctno driver denounced the supposed deficiencies of the curve.
Both the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the judge have been especially hard on the witness, who has been reproached for why he now clearly states in his statement the dangerousness of the curve and he did not do it at the time before his superiors.
Here the witness has alluded to the email sent by Iglesias Mazaira: “Yes, he was sued. But if they make a report about the dangerousness of the curve and they don’t listen to them, are they going to do it to us?”, he declared.
“My middle managers They knew about the danger of the curve the same as I did”, he added.
Although he has indicated that he does not remember that anyone from Adif or Renfe security accompanied him on any trip, he has insisted that the danger of the curve was something “known“.
The judge has insisted on why no train driver prepared an incident report or transferred this concern about the risks of the same to the unions, to which Mato has responded that he did not make any report to Adif because that is not his responsibility, but to give notice a “to your immediate boss”.
“That we have to be the drivers who say where to put the signals…“, the witness lamented, to which the judge answered harshly: “Well, it has to be someone, because they are carrying hundreds of people” (…) “I thought I was very safe on the train, but… “, has declared.
next sessions
Meanwhile, on Wednesday it will be the turn of the president (currently secretary) of Renfe’s general company committee, Juan Carlos Cañas.
Attention this week is focused on the declaration, already on Thursday, of Fernando Rebón, who was manager of the traffic safety area in the northwest area of Adif. Rebón was a collaborator of the former head of traffic security at Adif Andrés Cortabitarte at the time the line was put into operation.
Cortabitarte, together with the driver Francisco Garzón, sits in the dock of the defendants in this trial, which tries to determine criminal responsibilities for the 80 deaths and 145 injuries.
Advanced instruction, in September 2018, Fernando Rebón declared as investigated and defended that he had no competence in the commissioning of the line.
It was the second investigating judge, Andrés Lago Louro, who included him as being investigated to “clarify some of the defects that, with regard to the management of safety and risks inherent to the line, justified the imputation of Mr. cut you off.”
He did not see “dismissable” that “a good part of the reproaches that justified the imputation” of Cortabitarte could be “extensive” to Rebónalthough later this charge by Adif was dismissed.
Two technicians from the UTE
That same day, Thursday, he is summoned Juan Eduardo Olmedilla, a technician from the temporary union of companies (UTE) of Thales and Dimetronic, which supplied the security technology for the Ourense-Santiago line. He was the one who was in charge of the ‘safety case’ that the joint venture provided to Ineco.
Olmedilla testified in the Santiago courts as a witness before Lago Louro, to whom he informed that Adif did not ask to analyze the safety of the A Grandeira curve in which the Alvia train derailed.
In this regard, he assured that the risk analysis was carried out only up to where the ‘ERTMS’ safety system was installed, that is, before the derailment curve, so it was not carried out on the entire line.
In the appeal before the Supreme
It is quoted below Emilio Martín Lucas, also responsible for security in his day at Siemens-Dimetronicand who was later appointed member of the railway accident investigation commission (CIAF).
This name is one of those challenged by the platform of victims of the accident in the contentious appeal filed to demand that an independent investigation be carried out, and not the one that the CIAF prepared in its day, which points only to the excessive speed of the driver.
Precisely, the Supreme Court has just notified in an order that it will study “if the regulation of the CIAF (…) complies, in terms of its creation, composition, appointment of its members, organization and technical competence, the requirements of independence, impartiality and objectivity”.