Vladimir Mitev
Laurențiu Dumitru is the director general of AGIFER – the Romanian Railway Investigation Agency. AGIFER is able to investigate, in addition to serious accidents, those accidents and incidents that under slightly different conditions could have led to serious accidents, including technical failures of structural subsystems or interoperability constituents of European high-speed or conventional rail systems. Under no circumstances is the investigation concerned with establishing guilt or liability.
The Bridge of Friendship interviewed Laurențiu Dumitru on 19 February 2025, the day of the railway accident in Mihăești, when the wagons of a Rail Cargo train derailed and ran onto the track of a Bulgarian PIMK train. The driver of the PIMK train, a Romanian citizen, died as a result of the accident.
Mr. Dumitru, today there was a tragic rail accident in Mihaesti. What are the hypotheses regarding the causes of this rail accident?
The investigative work that we are carrying out in the case of this and other rail accidents is of a technical, organizational and human factor nature and is aimed at improvement. This means that we are not quickly identifying causes or culpability. We really are not allowed to look for culprits, causes or responsibilities, as European and national legislation obliges us to carry out a technical investigation aimed at improvement.
This means that we will carry out an investigation, just as in Bulgaria, in order to establish the causal, contributory and systemic factors that led to this accident. And following this, we will eventually issue safety recommendations aimed at improving traffic safety. The part related to culpability and liability that you are talking about is carried out by the criminal investigation carried out by the judicial authorities who coordinate and take action together with the police and obtain those matters related to culpability in the criminal file.
The duration of this activity, given that it has been found that any kind of criminal prosecution, which identifies culprits extremely quickly, had a weakness in the sense that it was not possible to draw any conclusions in terms of improvement, any lessons to help us to prevent such things from happening in the future. In these circumstances, due to the fact that the transport system has developed tremendously since its emergence in technical and technological terms, we have also reached situations in which there are very large masses on the move. A train can reach 1500-2000 tons.
The fact that trains have such a mass in motion also means the risk of an accident. The situation has come to the point where, in order to be able to obtain some conclusive and effective results for the future, an investigation must also be carried out, such a technical investigation, which must have the desire to identify, first and foremost, the complete truth and to identify all the details and issues that can be improved. I would also like to tell you that, in accordance with both national and European legislation, any kind of pre-emption for us is not possible for two reasons.
We must not end up in the extremely delicate situation where we say something and it is subsequently disproved by other evidence, other demonstrations, tests that have been done, which point in a completely different direction. Under these circumstances, we cannot prejudge things because we would be in the ridiculous situation of disproving things ourselves later on, on top of which the legislation does not allow such a thing. I know that the desire is to find out what has happened as quickly as possible, but my plea is just to understand that we have to do it very carefully, so that what we say is very accurate.
And that means a duration of up to a year, which is common in both air and sea transportation, for example. And all over Europe and all over the world this is used. And in Bulgaria you have an investment body in the field of rail transport, which operates with the same rules.
I understand. Then let me ask you about something different. Today there was a press release issued by the association of private railway operators which criticized the state of the railway infrastructure in Romania. How important is the issue related to the state of the rail infrastructure?
I can tell you that among other problems regarding the state of the rail infrastructure in Romania, there are some issues that have been accumulated over several years due to issues related to the difficulty of securing the necessary financing. In these circumstances, there are indeed some weaknesses in the rail infrastructure, and this is also something that we want to draw attention to, to identify some solutions, on the one hand, in order to find sources and be able to carry out the necessary work, to bring the infrastructure up to a better technical state. And at the same time, even in these conditions that exist now, to identify possible organizational and human resources solutions, training, awareness of the human factor in order to reduce these non-compliances that also lead to accidents.
Mr Grindianu, the Minister of Transport, called for a rapid investigation. From what I understand, you seem to have said that the investigation would take perhaps up to a year, if I understand correctly. So how quickly will it be possible to establish what actually happened?
And we obviously want, because the expectation is a long one, to finish as quickly as possible. With regard to the deadline, I cannot say at the moment, because there are a whole series of steps to be taken, in accordance with a European regulation which requires a certain form and content of an investigation report, certain evidence to be taken, staff to be questioned, tests to be carried out. And following all these issues that include all the branches of the rail infrastructure, as well as the rolling stock indicated and the human factor indicated. Following all these issues, the analysis is made that leads to the identification of the systemic contributing causal factors and those safety recommendations with a sense of improvement.
In a few words, we want to do this as quickly as possible, and we also want to do it as quickly as possible. I cannot give a deadline, I cannot estimate that we will be ready within a certain period of time, because I must tell you that this is not a simple case. It is not a simple case in the sense of finishing it in a quick form. We have to do it very carefully, we have to rush slowly, in such a way that what we say is rigorously accurate and is backed up with unquestionable evidence and demonstrations that are beyond doubt.
Photo: Laurențiu Dumitru (source: Rail Career in Romania)
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