Panel slams JR West's crash-probe tampering

OSAKA (Kyodo) An independent panel set up by West Japan Railway Co. has issued a report slamming the carrier's secret contact with the government that led to the leak of a confidential safety report to JR West officials looking to evade blame for the catastrophic Amagasaki train derailment of 2005.

The railway also said it would fire two people involved in leaking the report — without naming them — and set up yet another third-party group in December that will conduct its own investigation into the crash, which claimed 107 lives.

JR West executives, including former President Masao Yamazaki, approached members of the Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission and obtained a draft of its report on the disaster in advance.

It then pressured panelists to downplay language in the report critical of JR West's role in the accident, which occurred when the Fukuchiyama Line train, traveling too fast, jumped a curve and slammed into a condominium high-rise in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture.

"The unjustness is quite obvious and it deserves strong censure," the independent panel said in its report, which was submitted Wednesday to transport minister Seiji Maehara via JR West President Takayuki Sasaki.

"The information-gathering was organizational," the panel said after a one-month investigation. "Access to the commission members through back channels should not be approved in principle, and it also casts suspicions on the commission's independence and neutrality."

JR West told Maehara that it punished 35 employees, including executives, involved in acquiring the government's draft. It wasn't clear what the punishments entailed.

In late September, the Japan Transport Safety Board, the commission's successor body, said the draft was leaked to then JR West President Yamazaki shortly before the final version was publicly released in June 2007.

In response to persistent requests from Yamazaki, a member of the commission asked that a specific clause stating the accident could have been prevented if JR West had only installed a standard automatic train stopping system be softened or deleted from the report altogether.

"I expect JR West to push forward its reconstruction and compensation for the accident victims," Maehara told reporters after receiving the new panel's report.

He also said he will sack two members of the original commission who were involved in leaking the draft report, without publicly naming them.