How did the fatal train crash happen in San Bernardo?

It was 12:15 a.m. in freezing weather on Thursday, June 20, when two the trains They clashed head-on and collided violently. . They were passing through the town of San Bernardo, south of Santiago, but neither knew of the other’s existence, much less that they were on the same path.

One of them, from the company EFE was carrying out a speed check without passengers and heading south, while the other, a freight train from the company Fepase was traveling north.

Pedro Aravena, prosecutor in charge of the case, explained that “the affected train was arriving from the south to the north with freight and For unknown reasons, the central office was not informed of the arrival of this train.

But before the collision, four Chinese citizens who worked on the EFE train detected that another railway was approaching them at high speed. After seeing the lights getting closer and closer, they quickly warned the entire crew and ran to the last car to try to save their lives.

The nine passengers who were on board the National Railway Company (EFE) train They were already in carriages further away when they collided head-on with the freight train and there was a loud bang.

The EFE passenger train was on top of the Ferrocarril del Pacífico SA (Fepasa) freight train, crushing the cabin where the only two crew members were, who died instantly.

Meanwhile, the crew of the passenger train was in serious condition. When help arrived, after a few minutes, All of them were rushed to the nearest hospitals and, according to the latest report from the authorities, they are serious but their lives are not in danger.

The deceased were two Chileans: Daniel Vega, a 43-year-old man and father of three daughters. He was a machinist for Fepasa and had recently bought a house in the south of the country, because he dreamed of living there.

The other fatal victim was José Bonín, a 58-year-old man that he was a husband and father of a daughter and that he was also a Fepasa machinist who accompanied Vega that day. He had more than 20 years of experience in the field.

Bonín’s brother-in-law regretted his death, but urged authorities to explain how the accident happened: “We have a lot of questions. An action of this magnitude should not have taken place. I’m all for technology, but how come there’s no other backup system? said the man, as established The Dynamo.

The prosecution’s preliminary explanation is that there was a “possible failure of controls”. However, an arduous investigation began to determine with certainty why one of the trains was not informed of the presence of other machines on the same rail.

Meanwhile, the carabinieri arrived at the command-control sector and The test train driver and track controller were arrested. They will be formalized this Saturday for quasi-crime of homicide and serious injuries.

From Fepasa they reported that The affected freight train ran almost every day on the same track and had all the necessary authorizations. .

Additionally, a witness stated that The EFE driver was informed by radio that “we had to change lanes to number 2, track on which we did a complete test. When we went to do the second test on runway 2, we were traveling at a speed of about 120 kilometers per hour and Around midnight or after midnight we observed the train lights appear and it indicated “this train is coming to our track”.

The latest news known on this affair, Authorities seized the phones of some company officials. And the lawyer for one of the accused revealed, during a conversation with TVNWhat His client received instructions over the phone telling him where to go because “the operators’ radios were broken.”

It is these calls that investigators will try to listen to to determine what these instructions and messages would have led to the fatal impact, in addition to listening to the statements of the passengers who survived.

As revealed by a source The third Also the black box will be checked —the device that protects all activities, procedures and conversations that take place in the cabin— which can still be found on the roads of San Bernardo.