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Monday, July 29, 2013

The Spanish Train Tragedy 17

After his first - 2 hour - session with the investigating judge, the driver of the train has been been freed 'with charges'. His passport's been retained and he has to report weekly to a police station. He's also been debarred from driving trains. As if he'd want to.

One wonders where he will go to be safe. Thanks to the media feeding frenzy, his house in Madrid has been ransacked and he must be in some danger of physical attack.

For some reason, the judge has felt it necessary to stress it wasn't he who ordered the driver's arrest, but the police.

The police have formally refuted one of the allegations against him - that he was on the phone when the train crashed. However, there's no news of the opening of the black box and analysis of its contents. Pending a request from the judge, it remains under police lock and key.

The presidents of both Adif and RENFE have yet to hold any sort of press conference or to make a formal statement. In magazine interviews, they've both pointed at driver negligence. As have government spokespeople.

This being Spain, there are a number of conspiracy theories already in circulation and doubtless there'll be more:-

  • There's a figure climbing down one of the stanchions as the train passes.
  • There are a couple of obstacles on the line that derailed the train.
  • One of the carriages exploded before the train came off the rails.
  • The fire in one of the carriages was unprecedented. This never happens with train crashes.

I guess we're expected to think there was some sort of (Islamic) terrorist activity.

Finally . . . El País advises that "The merest question as to whether human error would be enough to cause the catastrophe or whether there was also a security failure is interpreted both by the regional and national governments as an attempt to smear the reputation of the AVE high-speed network in Spain, one of the best bets for internationalising the economy via contracts en Brazil, Russia, the USA and Kazakhstan."

Not as a search for the truth, then.

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