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155 people died in the glacier rail accident 20 years ago, no one was convicted. Strong lobbyists would have hindered education, says author Hannes Uhl. And it draws parallels with Ischgl.
A fan heater led to the fire: workers on the remains of the railway in Kaprun.
Photo: Keystone
The cable car accident in Kaprun, Austria on November 11, 2000 killed 155 people. To this day there has been criticism of the legal prosecution of the disaster. It is indisputable among experts that the fire started with a plastic fan heater. However, who is responsible is controversial. According to the Austrian judge, none of the sixteen defendants, all of whom were acquitted in 2004, but the manufacturing company in Germany. There, however, there was no fault in the company, but with an incorrect installation. Attempts to reopen the case failed.
Veteran journalist and former SPÖ press spokesperson Hannes Uhl has been dealing with the case for years and in 2014 he wrote the book “155 – Kriminalfall Kaprun” with Hubertus Godeysen, which is now updated in English translation.
Mr. Uhl, you have written a book on Kaprun in which you make serious accusations against the Austrian judiciary. How did that happen?
I grew up in the neighboring town of Kaprun and in 2009 came across the results of the Heilbronn prosecutor’s office by accident, which was investigating on behalf of the Austrian judiciary. These differ significantly from what is known in Austria about Kaprun. When I started to investigate, it quickly became clear that this is not speculation, but very clear facts. But everything that came from Germany was dismissed in Austria as a conspiracy theory. I couldn’t leave it like that. In the Kaprun case, the Republic of Austria was unable to establish the truth.
In order for us to understand how the opinion of the German court differs from the Austrian one, we have to look back again. What exactly happened back then?
On November 11, 2000, a fire broke out at the rear of the Kaprun glacier lift, killing 155 people in the tunnel fire. It quickly became clear to investigators that a fan heater was the prime suspect in causing the fire.
How did almost all the inmates die? Weren’t there any security measures?
There were no self-rescue concepts. Most of the people were locked in the cabins for a long time because the doors could not be opened from the inside. The driver realized late what was happening. Twelve people were forcibly saved: they broke the double-walled plexiglass glass with their skis and ran through the tunnel.
Following the accident, 16 people were charged.
Those responsible for the glacier railway and the companies in charge of the assembly and hydraulics of the train. They were charged based on the opinion of leading experts, who listed the fan heater, its improper use, and proximity to high-pressure hydraulic oil lines as the cause of the fire. In addition, officials from the Ministry of Transport who had approved the conversion of the train.
But they were all acquitted in 2004, why?
From the beginning there was a severe imbalance of forces in the process. The defendants had an army of high-profile defense attorneys by their side. By the way, among them are well-known personalities: Wolfgang Brandstetter, later Minister of Justice, or Wilfried Haslauer, today Governor of Salzburg. In front of them was a single prosecutor, and an expert, who was massively attacked by the defense and finally left due to illness. As a result, the process has taken a turn, your expert opinion no longer plays a role. Suddenly, incorrect installation of the fan heater was no longer the cause of the fire, but a production error. None of the defendants was responsible for the judge, but the German company that had manufactured the fan heater. Today it is clear that installation was the main problem.
The coffins of the victims are in a room at the Salzburg airport (November 18, 2000).
Photo: AP, Keystone
Which way?
The fan heater was not developed as a means of transport, but for use at home, in the bathroom or on the toilet. Its construction was also modified, it was disassembled for reasons of space and screwed to the desk. When installed next to the hydraulic oil lines, it became a time bomb. The prosecutor was able to obtain the report with the findings read in the process, but no one responded. Suddenly everything was excusable, no Austrian participant was responsible. All were acquitted on the note: it was an unavoidable event, triggered by a third party, namely the German manufacturer of air heaters Fakir. This went bankrupt as a result.
Aside from the acquittals, there were other inconsistencies during the trial.
For example, it took several months before the external expert was even allowed to examine the fan heater, because apparently the Ministry of the Interior and later the State Criminal Police Office in Salzburg withheld the evidence. Due to these inconsistencies, a home search at the Interior Ministry was even a problem. But that was rejected out of consideration for Austria’s image in the world.
“Step by step he was veiled and appeased.”
According to media reports, there was also concern about tourism.
Yes, the importance of tourism is enormous in Austria, comparable to the automobile industry in Germany. That is probably one of the reasons why it was veiled and appeased step by step. We experienced something similar in Ischgl, where no one wants to be blamed for the numerous corona infections and the late action of the authorities. The strong lobbies in the background seemingly prevent a ruthless explanation. The same thing happened in Kaprun. Austria has washed itself.
Today, Kaprun is no longer a problem in Austria, although the Heilbronn prosecutor came to different conclusions in 2007. What were they?
That is what surprises me: if the court file had not gone to Heilbronn to report the facts against the Fakir company, today we would not know what happened in Kaprun. The facts published by Heilbronn come as no surprise: the Salzburg judge’s ruling that it would have been an unavoidable event is therefore not defensible. In Austria people liked to blame divine providence, the judge even said at the time the verdict was pronounced: “God turned off the tunnel light for a few minutes.” The fact, however, is that the fan heater and its test brand were out of date by the time it was installed elsewhere than in a bathroom or toilet. It should never have been integrated into the train, as the first appraiser said. The German researchers found no design flaws. It was not divine thunder; rather, a man-made machine killed 155 people. Because man made mistakes.
You wrote it all in your book and for different media. What kind of reactions were there?
There were enough lawsuit threats before it was published to intimidate me and my co-author. But in the end there was not a single demand. None of the participants apparently wants everything to be raised again in court.
The Republic of Austria has compensated the bereaved and security measures on those railways have been significantly tightened.
Yes. Today there are voice connections from the passenger cabin and fire retardant materials are used. But for many of those bereaved, the catastrophe never stopped. No one took responsibility. Of course, no one intended or foresaw this disaster, but from all we know today, it would have been avoidable. 20 years later, it would be time for Austria to admit its own mistakes. But to this day there have only been expressions of condolences.
