The judge of the Civil and Preliminary Proceedings Section of the Court of Instance of Montoro (Córdoba), Plaza number 2, responsible for investigating the rail accident of Adamuz, in which on Sunday 18 January 46 people lost their lives and more than 120 were injured, has called for this Thursday specialists from Iryo and Renfe, as well as technicians from other companies and the court-appointed experts. The aim is to carry out, in the judicial premises, the act of accessing, decrypting and interpreting the data stored in the legal recorders of both trains—that is, the black boxes.
According to the ruling order to which Europa Press has had access, the Information Technology department has been asked to provide the technicians with the necessary resources requested by Hasler Rail --the manufacturer of the equipment-- for the specified date of the evidence procedure, in order to ensure that the dumping and analysis of the information can be carried out with the appropriate tools.
In that same document, the magistrate specifies to Hasler Rail that the technical report it must submit within the set timeframe, in its capacity as the manufacturer of the legal recorders --black boxes-- and provider of the essential tools for accessing, viewing and presenting the recorded information, "must be a descriptive technical report of the actions carried out during the performance of the evidence procedure and of the results obtained within the scope of its competences --assistance in loading and viewing the records, technical identification and explanation of the signals, configuration of graphic views and chronology, system recording checks that prove necessary, etc.--".
Likewise, the judge clarifies to the rest of the technicians who will participate --with the exception of the court-appointed experts-- in the act of accessing, decrypting and interpreting the data from the black boxes of the ill-fated Alvia and Iryo trains that their report "must reach the interpretation of the overall behavior of each train, functional correlation of its various subsystems, determination of possible causes and contributing factors of the accident and other matters that may be raised during the performance of the evidence procedure that fall within the scope of their competences for interpretation", as is set out in a ruling order of 6 November to which Europa Press has also had access.
Initial opening of the black boxes in Madrid
The dependencies of the then Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF) in Madrid already received on March 5 the opening of the black boxes of the two trains involved, after the Montoro Court of Instance authorized on February 26 access, extraction and analysis of their contents, as well as obtaining the data stored in the security cameras located inside the Iryo train.
In that ruling, the judge allowed the use of any computer application that verified "the integrity of the files, their creation date, manipulation or any other data of interest". The dumping, extraction and examination of the information was carried out in the presence of agents of the Judicial Police, who recorded an official record of the procedure, "obtaining digital evidence of the contents and/or a certified copy of the data obtained", keeping one copy to continue the investigations and immediately sending another to the judicial body.
Finally, it was ruled out to move the black boxes and the rest of the material to Montoro, in order to avoid the risks associated with a possible transfer of the recording equipment to the judicial offices in the Córdoba locality, so the technical operations were centralized in Madrid.
Software contracting and assistance from Hasler Rail
In mid-May, the judge sent an official letter to the General Secretariat of Judicial Infrastructures and Digitalization of the Justice Department of the Junta de Andalucía so that, "with an urgent nature", the competent administrative body would adopt the necessary measures that would allow this court, "as soon as possible", to have the computer applications and the specialized personnel of the manufacturing company indispensable to decipher the black boxes of both trains.
In that order, and given "the state of the proceedings", the presiding magistrate requested access to the computer programs --'softwares'-- Multirec-SG and Husler-SG, corresponding to the legal recorders of the Iryo and Alvia train, whose installation and use licenses belong to Hasler Rail. She also requested "personnel from the manufacturing company that allows effective access, deciphering and interpretation of the data, all of this being deemed necessary for the clarification of the facts that are the subject of this instruction".
At the beginning of June, the Junta de Andalucía agreed to authorize an expenditure of 1,980 euros plus VAT to cover the cost of the expert assessment required by Court Plaza number 2 of the Tribunal de Instancia de Montoro, in order to provide the court with the necessary technical means for the effective access, deciphering and interpretation of the information contained in the legal recorders of the two crashed trains.
The resolution of the Provincial General Secretariat of the Territorial Delegation of Justice, Local Administration and Public Function in Córdoba specifies that this is a 'software' whose installation and use license is owned by Hasler Rail, so that "expert assessment can only be carried out by this one".
The written statement adds that "the aforementioned expenditure is not among those that can be carried out by the technical staff assigned to the support services of the Administration of Justice or by the entities awarded the administrative contracts, which are set out in the Resolution of the Delegation of the Government in Córdoba of 1 March 2018, issued in compliance with article 5 of Decree 4/2018, of 16 January (BOJA 16, of 3 January), which regulates the provision to the judicial bodies and the Ministry of the Prosecutor of experts, translators and interpreters for their intervention in judicial proceedings charged to the administration of the Junta de Andalucía, and the payment and reimbursement procedure for the corresponding expenses".
In this context, the Andalusian Government requested a budget from Hasler Rail, which sent a proposal broken down by an amount of 1,980 euros, VAT not included, in order to be able to carry out the expert assessment and guarantee the technical examination of the black boxes.