The judge of the Civil and Instruction Section of the Court of Instance of Montoro (Córdoba), Plaza number 2, responsible for the investigation of the rail accident in Adamuz, in which on Sunday 18 January 46 people died and more than 120 were injured, has called for this Thursday specialists from Iryo and Renfe, along with technicians from other companies and judicial experts, to carry out at judicial headquarters the access, decryption and interpretation procedure of the data stored in the legal recorders of both trains, that is, the black boxes.
According to the order for which Europa Press has had access, the Information Technology department has been asked to provide the technicians with all the means required by Hasler Rail --the equipment manufacturer-- on the date set for carrying out that procedure.
In that same document, the magistrate specifies to Hasler Rail that the technical report it must submit within the established deadline, in its capacity as manufacturer of the legal recorders --black boxes-- and supplier of the tools necessary for accessing, viewing and presenting the recorded information, "must be a descriptive technical report of the actions carried out during the procedure and the results obtained within the scope of its competencies --assistance in loading and viewing the records, identification and technical explanation of the signals, configuration of graphical views and chronology, system-specific checks of the recording system that prove necessary, etc.--".
Likewise, the judge indicates to the rest of the technicians who will participate --except for the judicial experts-- in the access, decryption and interpretation procedure of the data from the black boxes of the Alvia and Iryo trains involved in the accident, that their opinion "must reach the interpretation of the overall behavior of each train, functional correlation of its different subsystems, determination of possible causes and contributing factors of the accident and other matters that may be raised during the procedure that fall within the scope of their interpretation competencies", as stated in an order dated 6 November for which Europa Press has had access.
First opening of the black boxes in Madrid
The installations of the then Comisión de Investigación de Accidentes Ferroviarios (CIAF) in Madrid were the setting, on March 5, for the initial opening of the black boxes of the two trains involved, after the Montoro Court authorized on February 26 access, extraction and analysis of their contents, as well as obtaining the data from the security cameras located inside the Iryo train.
In that ruling, the judge allowed using any computer application that checked "the integrity of the files, their creation date, manipulation or any other data of interest". The dump, extraction and examination of the information were carried out in the presence of agents of the Policía Judicial, who documented the procedure, "obtaining digital evidence of the content and/or certified copy of the data obtained", keeping one copy to continue the inquiries and immediately sending another to the judicial body.
Finally, it was decided not to move the recording equipment to the judicial offices of Montoro to avoid the risks associated with a possible transport of the material to the Córdoba locality.
Contracting the software and assistance from Hasler Rail
In mid-May, the magistrate sent an official letter to the General Secretariat of Judicial Infrastructures and Digitalization of the Ministry of Justice of the Junta de Andalucía so that, "with an urgent nature", the competent administrative body adopt the necessary measures that would allow this court, "as soon as possible", to have the computer applications and the personnel of the manufacturing company essential to decipher the black boxes of the two trains.
In that order, and considering "the status of the proceedings", the judge requested access to the 'softwares' Multirec-SG and Husler-SG from the legal recorders of the Iryo and Alvia trains, whose installation and use licenses belong to Hasler Rail, in addition to "personnel from the manufacturing company that allows effective access, deciphering and interpretation of the data, all of this being considered necessary for clarifying the facts that are the subject of the present investigation".
At the beginning of June, the Junta de Andalucía agreed to assume, for an amount of 1,980 euros plus VAT, the cost of the expert report requested by Court of Instance number 2 of the Montoro Instance Court, in order to have the necessary resources for the effective access, decryption, and interpretation of the information contained in the legal registries of both trains.
The resolution of the Provincial General Secretariat of the Territorial Delegation of Justice, Local Administration and Public Function in Córdoba details that it is a 'software' whose installation and use license is owned by Hasler Rail, so the "expert report can only be carried out by this one".
The document adds that "the aforementioned expense is not among those that can be carried out by the technical staff assigned to the support services to the Administration of Justice or by the contracting entities of administrative contracts, which are set out in the Resolution of the Government Delegation 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 to the Ministry of the Public Prosecutor of expert witnesses, 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".
Along these lines, the Andalusian Government requested a budget from Hasler Rail, which sent it in a detailed manner for a total of 1,980 euros, VAT not included.