Five convictions and one acquittal : this is the judgment rendered this Thursday by the Paris criminal court at the trial of the TGV Est accident. The SNCF, like five of the six other defendants, is found guilty of “homicide and involuntary injuries due to clumsiness, imprudence, negligence or breach of a safety obligation”. In addition to SNCF, Systra and SNCF Réseau are condemned. The penalties range from 150,000 to 400,000 euros fine.
The driver and the traction manager responsible for indicating the braking points are condemned to suspended prison sentence. Seven months suspended prison sentence for the driver and 15 months suspended prison sentence for the traction officer. The third man present in the cabin, a Systra employee, is released. The derailment of the test train, on November 14, 2015, caused the death of 11 people and injured 42 people in Eckwersheim (Bas-Rhin) in Alsace.
Strong condemnations
“If the forced march test program had been respected, the accident would never have happened“, concludes the president of the court. She points out the cocktail which led to this accident: the impatience, the haste and the absence of vigilance of the companies. She also highlights the lightness of the driving team, with a cabin manager and a main driver who “did not react, even though they had the skills to do so”.
The three legal entities convicted are companies: SNCF, Systra (the engineering company responsible for the tests), and SNCF Network (responsible for track management). They were prosecuted for “homicides and involuntary injuries due to clumsiness, recklessness, negligence or breach of an obligation of safety”.
The SNCF is sentenced to 400,000 euros. The court considered that SNCF had not not properly assessed the risks and that staff lacked training. During the trial in the spring, prosecutor Nicolas Hennebelle had requested convictions strong. He denounced “collective blindness” in the conduct of the overspeed tests and a series of “absurd” decisions.
Systra, the SNCF subsidiary which organized the tests, is sentenced to 225,000 eurosthe legal maximum incurred, for “multiple negligence” and again a lack of staff training.
SNCF Réseau, is fined 150,000 euros.
The responsibility of those who were in the driving cabin
The traction frame is the most severely condemned. Francis L, who was responsible for indicating the braking points, received a 15-month suspended prison sentence.
The TGV driver, Denis T. is sentenced to 7 months in prison
The third man present in the cabin, a Systra employee, Philippe B., is released. He was responsible for pointing out the particularities of the track to the driver.
All three were absent from the hearing.
Emotion for the victims, “the pain is still there”
“The judgment satisfies us“, declared Gérard Chemla, lawyer for around forty civil parties, after the announcement of this decision. The victims and their families had been waiting for the decision for nine years.
“There is no relief, the pain is still there. The companies could have had a lot more. They don’t have much to give compared to their turnover, it’s nothing compared to eleven lives lost. We don’t turn the page on the loss of a child, we live with it, but we don’t turn the page, impossible“, says at Radio France microphone Christine Landais, the mother of Jérémy Landais killed on November 14 in the accident.
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