A soon-to-be-established National Transportation Safety Council would determine whether to reopen an investigation into the derailment of a Puyuma Express train in Yilan County on Oct. 21 last year, which killed 18 people and injured 298.
The Aviation Safety Council (ASC) investigates the causes of aviation accidents. On Aug. 1, the council is to be renamed the National Transportation Safety Council, which would investigate aviation as well as major railway and highway accidents.
An ad hoc group formed by the Executive Yuan has investigated the causes of the derailment, but the families of the victims said they were not convinced by its conclusions.
They have been asking the government to quickly establish a national transportation safety council that would be in charge of reopening the investigation.
ASC Chairman Yang Hung-chi (楊宏智), who has confirmed that he would be the new council’s first chairman, said that the Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office has agreed to hand over evidence related to the derailment to the new council once it is established.
The evidence would include recorded conversations between the train driver and the operation control center, and video footage recorded by a dashboard camera, he said, adding that the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) would also be asked to provide information.
The new council within the first week of its establishment would discuss whether it is necessary to reopen the investigation, Yang said, adding that it might need more time to gather information about the case.
A final decision would be made before the end of this year, he said.
Commenting on the Executive Yuan’s investigation, Yang said that investigators did not cross-examine all the evidence.
Investigators did not gather enough measurement data and the probe’s results were questionable, as investigators used a lot of hypotheses to simulate the speed at which the train was traveling when it derailed, he said.
The new council would have a specific division investigating railway accidents, whose investigators would focus on issues that were not touched on in the Executive Yuan’s probe, Yang added.
These include why the driver operated above the speed limit and whether it is common for Puyuma Express drivers to do so, he said.
Investigators would also look into how the TRA trains its drivers to handle problems with Puyuma Express trains, particularly with regard to unstable operating speeds, he said.
The TRA’s procedures for stopping trains for inspections, changing trains and approving operations would be scrutinized, Yang said, adding that the information is needed to present a convincing investigation result to the public.
All the parties involved in the derailment, including the manufacturers of the train and the automatic train protection system as well as the company that conducted independent verification and validation for the system, should assign representatives to participate in the investigation, he said.
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