Questioning of ill-fated train driver goes on

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Probe into deadly train crash presses on

Nana Rukmana The Jakarta Post Brebes

Police continued their questioning of the driver of the Empu Jaya train on Wednesday, after he was named as the possible culprit in last month's train crash that killed 30 people in Brebes, Central Java.

Although seriously injured, Muhammad To'at, 50, is being questioned by a team of experts from the National Police forensic laboratory and psychiatrists at the Brebes hospital where he has been treated, along with Central Java police.

The questioning began on Monday.

The use of a psychiatrist is "important to know about the psychological health of the suspect, to determine if he is fit enough for further questioning," Brebes Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Heru Setyawan said.

To'at suffered two broken arms and was reportedly in a state of shock following the head-on collision between his Empu Jaya and the Gaya Baru Malam train at the small Ketanggungan railway station in Brebes on Dec. 25.

"The results of the forensic investigation will be further verified with physical a chemistry approach to determine its accuracy," Heru said.

The police, he said, are yet to name another suspect, although they have questioned at least 20 witnesses, including the driver's assistant, Nana Rukmana, head of the Ketanggungan station Ujang Effendi and the engineer of Gaya Baru Malam Sutrisna.

Questioning of Nana will determine whether he will become a new suspect, or remain a witness, Heru added.

The police assisted another team of investigators from state- owned railway company, PT Kereta Api Indonesian (KAI) and the Ministry of Transportation, in attempting to find out the cause of the crash.

The team had confirmed police officials' earlier theory that the collision stemmed from human error, after To'at had ignored a series of traffic signals near the Ketanggungan station.

Investigators also found that To'at did not apply his brakes until he was 135.3 meters away from the Gaya Baru Malam -- far too close to avoid a crash.

This finding "shoots down" Muhammad To'at's earlier statement -- namely that the Empu Jaya's brakes failed as he approached the station, according to Heru.

Beyond that, Heru added that the Empu Jaya, at 85 kilometers per hour (kph), was traveling too fast when it approached the point of impact near the train station. The permissible speed in the area was only 30 kph.

And, "at the time of the crash, the Empu Jaya was traveling at 78.83 kph," he said; the maximum speed is 30 kph. "It clearly shows that the driver violated the maximum speed, so the train entered the station 17 seconds too early."

PT KAI and the government have been blasted by critics for overemphasizing human or technical error as the cause for this, and a recent spate of other similar accidents, in which hundreds have been killed.

Train drivers, mostly between 40 and 50 years old, have always fallen victims to blame -- while the state-owned railway company has yet to cite the conditions of the trains and the railways as possible factors.

Critics and consumers say PT KAI has never learned lessons from previous train crashes that were largely caused by company mismanagement, rather than human or technical error.

In a rare move last week, however, the company acknowledged a degree of responsibility for the Brebes accident when its board of directors resigned.