(The Associated Press circulated the following article by Koza Mizoguchi on December 20.)
TOKYO — A government panel investigating Japan’s worst train wreck in decades said Wednesday the driver may have failed to use the brakes in time because he was distracted by a radio conversation.
The report also suggested that pressure on drivers to conform to an overly precise train schedule may have contributed to the April 2006 accident.
A total of 107 people – 106 passengers and driver Ryujiro Takami – were killed when a speeding West Japan Railway Co. commuter train jumped off a curve in Amagasaki and slammed into an apartment building.
The accident, about 250 miles west of Tokyo, was Japan’s worst rail disaster since a three-train crash in November 1963 killed 161 in Tsurumi, outside Tokyo.
In a report, Japan’s Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission said Takami may have been preoccupied by a radio conversation between his train’s conductor and the control center about a mistake the driver made at a previous station.
The commission said Takami overshot the previous station by about 238 feet and had to backtrack, losing a precious 80 seconds in the process – a significant delay in a country obsessed with punctuality.
Takami then hit the curve at 73 mph, far faster than the 43 mph speed limit for that stretch, apparently to make up for lost time.
The accident has left many people shaken in safety-conscious Japan and rattled their pride in the country’s extensive railway network, among the most efficient and punctual in the world.
Officials will investigate the accident further before releasing its final report sometime next year, according to commission official Hiroki Nakagiri.