Exonerate fatal acts, more confidentiality: Puente retries to unify the technical investigation of train, ship and plane accidents

The Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday a bill for the creation of an Independent Authority that will bring together the technical investigation into plane, rail and maritime accidents currently carried out by three separate commissions.. The new body will have a degree of independence similar to the Airef or the CNMC, its own budget and independent of the Government and it is expected to have greater freedom to investigate the technical causes of accidents in which people responsible for actions or omissions will not be accused. fatal when they were within its powers, which will specify the confidentiality of the actions and during which special assistance will be offered to the victims or their families.

As he did last week with the Sustainable Mobility Law, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, recovers another law in his branch that was deactivated last year due to the call for general elections and returns to Congress to send a law to create a body that will bring together the work now carried out by three organizations, but providing it with financial, organic and functional autonomy to investigate serious or very serious train, ship or plane accidents.

According to the bill that passed last year and which is the same as the one approved this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, all “serious” accidents in the railway sector, which are collisions or collisions, will fall under the jurisdiction of the new Independent Authority. train derailment with at least one fatality or five or more serious injuries, in which material damage of at least two million euros can be immediately determined, affecting rolling stock, infrastructure or the environment or any other accident with evident effect on railway safety.

It will also intervene ex officio in “very serious” maritime accidents, which are those in which a Spanish-flagged ship is involved, regardless of where it occurs, when the incident is in the territorial sea or Spanish internal waters or when it affects interests of Spain.

As for civil aviation, it will investigate “accidents and serious incidents” to which it is obliged by EU regulations, in cases in which they occur in its territory or when a Spanish-registered aircraft is involved and cannot be established precisely. the place where the accident occurred.

Reserved information

The objective of the technical investigation is to establish its causes and formulate safety recommendations to improve safety and prevent accidents.. On the contrary, it will not pursue the determination of responsibility or the attribution of guilt, something that corresponds to the judicial investigation with which, however, its work may collaborate.. For example, the Prosecutor's Office represents one of the exceptions to the secrecy and confidentiality of the technical investigation of the accident enshrined in the law of the Independent Authority, which declares “restricted information” the testimonies of witnesses, other statements or descriptions, documents that reveal the identity of the persons who have testified or information about the persons involved, especially with regard to their state of health.

The investigations into accidents carried out by this new Authority, whose creation will be processed in Congress by urgent procedure, will be carried out under the principle of “just culture”, which means that operators or other “front-line personnel” with some responsibility in the accident for their actions, omissions or decisions should not be punished if they did not exceed their powers or experience. On the contrary, “gross negligence, willful infringements and destructive acts” will not be tolerated.

As explained in the explanatory memorandum, the decision to unify the work of the three current commissions into a single Independent Authority has to do with overcoming a “fragmented structure” with a “single multimodal body” that assumes technical investigation powers in the areas of civil aviation, railway and maritime, despite the fact that one of these sectors explained that there was no evidence that the current investigation system did not function properly. In recent years, the different investigation commissions have had to intervene, for example, in the Alvia accident in Angrois, in July 2013 near Santiago de Compostela; the accident of the Spanair plane in Barajas in August 2008 or the sinking of the ship Villa de Pintanxo in Canadian waters, in February 2022.

When the law is approved, a body with an Independent Administrative Authority will be created, the body with “greatest independence from the executive branch”, explains the Ministry, with an autonomy that it wants to reinforce by providing it with its own resources, coming not from the public Budget but from fees paid. by the actors of the air, maritime and railway sectors, or giving more free hands to a Council that will be made up of a president and six councilors – two from each sector – who will have a mandate longer than one legislature, lasting six years, although half of the six councilors, chosen by lottery, will renew three years after their appointment. They may not be dismissed once Congress approves an appointment proposed by the Ministry among “professionals of recognized prestige and accredited professional qualifications.”. They will not be able to be re-elected either, they must have exclusive dedication and when they leave office they will not be able to carry out any private activity related to their performance in the Independent Authority.

More flexibility for carriers

On the other hand, also this Tuesday the Ministry of Transport gave the green light to certain time flexibility for road freight transporters who have been affected by the cuts and retentions that in recent weeks have caused protests in the agricultural sector.. The decision is similar to the one that was already made at the end of January due to the protests in France.

“Always ensuring that safety on the road is not put at risk,” the Ministry will allow transporters to extend their working hours and reduce rest periods during February 5 and 14 and 19 and 26.

In this period, transporters will be allowed to drive a maximum of 10 hours a day instead of nine and 60 hours a week instead of 56.. They will be able to rest only nine hours a day instead of 10 and postpone the start of the weekly rest period beyond six 24-hour periods.