By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The San José Prosecutor's Office has announced the accusation against two men allegedly responsible for a head-on railway crash and committing the crime of wrongful injury to the detriment of 43 passengers in April 2016. They are the engineer and the assistant of one train surnamed Ramos-Castellón and Castillo-Pérez.

According to the Prosecutor's report, the authorities are in the stage of presenting the accusation to the victims who will have three business days to respond if they wish to join the case and present a private accusation. Or, if they can choose a civil remedy to claim compensation for damages suffered.

After deciding strategy, victims will have an additional 10 days to file the case. Then the Prosecutor's Office will present the accusation, to the Criminal Court of Pavas when parties to the process will attend a preliminary hearing.

In that hearing, the Prosecutor will request a judge to order a trial.

"If the trial is ordered, it will be up to the criminal court of the area to set the date for the start of the trial," said the prosecutor in its statement.

According to the investigation carried out by this Prosecutor's Office, on April 8, 2016, Ramos was in charge of a train, while the other suspect, Castillo was present. The train was traveling from San Antonio de Belén in the province of Heredia to train station in San José.

"It is suspected that Ramos missed the duty of care and, presumably, would have disregarded an order issued by a radio operator, who told him to stop at the site known as Tubo Tico in Pavas to give priority to another train that was traveling in the opposite direction, " said the Prosecutor's Office in its statement.

According to the thesis, prosecutors say Castillo mishandled the radio alert and did not repeat it to Ramos. He did not insist that the order be carried out by the engineer, according to the scenario.The frontal collision is blamed on the negligence of both men, according to prosecutors.

In the train crash more than half of the passengers were able to walk away from the scene. Health officials estimated that of 245 persons on board that Friday morning, some 106 went to medical centers.

The Cruz Roja said that 90 persons were treated at hospitals and released and just six were seriously hurt. Among these were front cab occupants of both trains.

Despite the force of the accident, there were no deaths

All of the train cars stayed on the tracks, and videos shot seconds after the collision showed most passengers unhurt and milling around the car.

The Cruz Roja, firefighters and police had their own reports which varied slightly.

The National Insurance Institute said that the national rail agency, the Institute of Rail Services, maintains a liability policy and that its system handled 90 patients. Some of the most seriously hurt were being treated at the insurance institute’s Hospital de Trauma in La Uruca in the province of San José.

Guillermo Santana, executive president of the rail institute at the time of the accident, said at the scene in Pavas that the cause of the crash was human error and a lack of communication.


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