The investigation into the Puisseguin accident, one of the deadliest for a coach with 43 deaths in 2015, is headed for dismissal in the absence of indictments, a prospect strongly denounced by lawyers for several hundred civil parties.
"We didn't get to the bottom of it"
On October 23, 2015, a collision between a truck and a bus killed 43 people in Puisseguin, the deadliest road accident in France since that of Beaune, in Côte-d'Or, in 1982 [53 dead, most of them children, editor's note]. Five years later, the investigating judge in charge of this delicate file in Libourne, in the Gironde, recently informed the parties that he was ending his investigations, without having ordered an indictment, announced Tuesday at AFP the public prosecutor, Olivier Kern.
"We are being told, 43 people died and 'it's the fault of no luck'. We didn't get to the bottom of it," protested Marie Mescam, lawyer for victims and their relatives. "If there is no indictment it is because we are headed for a dismissal," she lamented. This procedural step opens a period of 3 months during which the parties and the public prosecutor's office may make observations or request additional investigations, before the requisitions from the public prosecutor and then the final decision of the investigating judge.
This announcement "does not prejudge" the content of the requisitions that the prosecution will take, however stressed the prosecutor, without further details. And for the victims, it also does not sign the end of their long legal battle to identify the responsibilities. They demand new investigations.
Victims trapped in the bus and burned alive or asphyxiated
That day, on the D17, the sharp turn was known, limited to 90 km / h, but without major accident-causing liabilities. However, around 7:30 am, a semi-trailer arriving at 75 km / h had moved to the left when leaving the village and had put in wallet before hitting a coach of retirees gone on an excursion, coming in the opposite direction. "If there had been only the shock, there would be no victim," had assured at the time a survivor, Raymond Silvestrini. But, the bus had ignited "in less than three minutes", according to another survivor.
Most of the victims were members of the senior citizens' club in Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps, a small neighboring commune. The passengers had been trapped in the bus and died burned alive or suffocated.
In 2017, the land transport accident investigation office (BEA-TT) recommended strengthening the construction standards for coaches, in particular the behavior of materials in fire. In his report, he attributed the direct cause of the accident to a loss of control of the truck collided with the coach. The judge has one month to respond.