New evidence suggests driver sought to retrieve truck before crash: source
04/08/2021 09:42 PM
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Crane truck driver Lee Yi-hsiang (in yellow) escorted by police as he enters Hualien District Prosecutors Office on Thursday.
Taipei, April 8 (CNA) Newly surfaced evidence suggests that Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of the crane truck that caused the deadly train crash on April 2, tried but failed to maneuver his truck from where it had got stuck in roadside bushes shortly before the accident, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that based on new evidence, Lee had tried to extricate the truck with an excavator.
The truck that caused Taiwan’s worst train crash in decades was on the line for just over a minute before it was struck, officials have said, as salvage teams worked to remove the most damaged carriages.
At least 50 people were killed and more than 210 were injured in Friday’s crash, which sent a packed eight-car train hurtling into the sides of a narrow tunnel near the eastern coastal city of Hualien.
Investigators said on Tuesday that the Taroko Express hit a railway maintenance truck on the line in a “head-on collision” moments before it entered the tunnel.
The vehicle slipped down a steep embankment and prosecutors are working to determine whether the driver failed to secure the parking brake or if the truck suffered a mechanical failure.
2021/04/07 11:41 Seconds before train collided with crane truck. (TTSB image) Seconds before train collided with crane truck. (TTSB image) TAIPEI (Taiwan News) Four days after the deadly Hualien train derailment, a video was released showing that the locomotive s driver had a mere seven seconds to try to halt the train after a crane truck had rolled onto the tracks. On Tuesday (April 6), the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board (TTSB) provided the findings of the preliminary investigation into the accident based on data obtained from the train s event recorder and dashcam video footage. The presentation included video footage showing the final 10 seconds before the train s engine slammed into the truck.
Task force to examine TRA documents
DETECTION DEMANDS: A KMT lawmaker asked what kind of a country would allow another fatal derailment so soon after the Puyuma Express No. 6432 crash in 2018
By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
The Legislative Yuan’s Transportation Committee yesterday passed a motion to form a task force that would require the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) to turn in all documents related to the derailment of the Taroko Express No. 408 in Hualien County on Friday last week.
The committee passed the motion and several other resolutions related to the derailment after briefings by Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and TRA Acting Director-General Chi Wen-chung (祁文中) about the crash, which killed 50 people and injured more than 200.