2015 TGV Est accident: train derailed, SNCF found guilty of “involuntary manslaughter and injury”
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SNCF was fined €400,000 by the Paris Criminal Court on Thursday for its role in the TGV Est accident that killed 11 people and injured 42 during tests on November 14, 2015 in Eckwersheim (Bas-Rhin).
SNCF, like five of the six other defendants, was found guilty of “involuntary manslaughter and injury through clumsiness, imprudence, negligence or failure to comply with a safety obligation”. The engineering company Systra, responsible for the tests, which “bears the greatest responsibility” in the accident, was fined €225,000. SNCF Réseau (responsible for track management) was fined €150,000.
The driver of the TGV that had the accident, Denis T. – absent from the hearing –, was sentenced to 7 months in prison, suspended, while his colleague Francis L. – also absent from the hearing –, who was responsible for giving him braking instructions, was given a 15-month suspended prison sentence.
Philippe B., a Systra agent responsible for pointing out the particularities of the track to the driver, was acquitted.
The sentences for Denis T. and Francis L. are slightly lower than the demands of the public prosecutor, who had requested a suspended prison sentence of one and two years respectively.
The president of the 31st correctional chamber took the time to read the reasons given by the court for nearly three hours before announcing the quantum of the sentences for each of the defendants.
During the trial in the spring, the prosecution denounced “collective blindness” in the conduct of the high-speed tests and a series of “absurd” decisionsThe court largely agreed with him, pointing out that if just one of the defendants had not failed in his obligations, the accident would never have happened. SNCF, Systra and SNCF Réseau did not properly assess the risks of the overspeed tests, the court ruled.
“Errors and mistakes”
“We hope that the court will clearly expose the guilt of the railway companies but also of the men who were in charge and who made mistakes, as the accident turned out to be the consequence of a sum of errors, organizational and driving faults”, had indicated to AFP, before the court's decision, Gérard Chemla, lawyer for around fifty civil parties.
“For more than two months (the duration of the trial, editor's note), we were able to measure the inconsistencies, disorganizations and limits of the organizations of these large companies that have done nothing but pass the buck”, he added.
During the nine weeks of the trial, the accused did not stop blaming each other, without acknowledging their own responsibility. “We were bad”, the SNCF representative conceded during the hearing. Before immediately adding: “But not bad at everything.”
This systematic denial has often exasperated the bereaved and the survivors. Many were present in the courtroom on Thursday to hear the verdict.
The TGV, which was carrying out tests on the final section of the Paris-Strasbourg high-speed line (LGV) before its opening to the public, approached a curve at 265 km/h, much faster than the 176 km/h planned for this location, due to a braking point that was too late.
It derailed, hitting the parapet of the bridge over the Marne-Rhine Canal at Eckwersheim, 20 km from Strasbourg, at an estimated speed of 243 km/h. The investigation established that neither the equipment nor the track could be blamed to explain the derailment of the TGV which was carrying 53 people, including 35 “guests”.
This accident, which remains the worst catastrophe in the history of the TGV, was long overshadowed by the attacks of November 13, committed the day before in the Paris region.