In the national tragedy of February 28, 2023, “we concluded that terrible mistakes were made […] starting with the human factor, which malfunctioned in all its activities, and reaching the technological systems which did not work or did not work that night.” This he emphasized, in the context of his testimony to the commission of inquiry for “the investigation of the crime of Tempe”, Mr. Ioannis Chalkias where participated in the three-member expert committeealso known as the “Gerapetritis” committee.

As he said, the main cause of this great misfortune was the station master, who, like the train drivers, made “tragic mistakes”. Referring to the conclusions of the Gerapetritis committee, he said: “We came to the conclusion that the responsibilities start from the bottom and can go all the way up. The extent of each person’s responsibility is a matter for the judiciary to investigate” said Mr. Chalkias and continued: “I cannot say that the commander of the OSE or ERGOSE, etc., has criminal responsibility, if we do not have full knowledge of the file. And at the moment, only the Larissa investigator has knowledge.”

He then said that “we arrived at the structure of our conclusion, saying: The station master is responsible, the inspector who appointed him is responsible, and (left him) alone, possibly the other two station masters who left instead of 11 o’clock earlier, are responsible. responsibilities in the OSE’s operations department, in the personnel department, responsibilities in ERGOSE precisely because it is overwhelmed with contracts that start and never end or end after 10 years, after successive extensions, which also burden the costs, responsibilities obviously in RAS which, badly in my opinion, had taken over by legislative initiative the safety issues of the railway – it should have dealt only with the market and competition – responsibilities obviously to Hellenic Train precisely because its train drivers were also responsible for the whole accident, responsibility obviously and to the Ministry because as supervisor of the entire railway sector obviously some things should have been done better, some arrangements should have been more successful…”

Answering related questions from ND MP L. Tsavdaridis, Mr. Chalkias said that the train driver had to stop the train, and that his consultation with the station master was “café-style”. He also pointed out that “and the train drivers (had to) reverently observe the General Traffic Regulation, which, although it has its flaws, but even if they had followed it, the accident could have been avoided”.

When asked by SYRIZA-PS MP V. Kokkalis if the ECTS system existed, and at the same time human errors were made, the accident would have been avoided, Mr. Chalkias said that “the train would have stopped”. Also, as to whether he would characterize the employment of the station master as illegal, Mr. Chalkias said “yes, his reassignment obviously, manifestly illegal.”