Talk:Kaprun disaster

Similarities with Kings Cross fire

I've just come across accounts of this disaster for the first time. I'm struck by similarities with the King Cross Fire in 1987 which was also a fire which rose with devasting effect in an inclined tunnel. Lax safety precautions ('never had a fire before') were strongly criticized, & heads rolled (ie senior managers resigned). Is it appropriate to add a mention of this? Mattymmoo (talk) 23:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

No, because the King's Cross fire was an example of a different phenomenon - the 'flashover' fire - which at the time of the KX disaster was unknown. A relatively non-intense fire (from the dropped match ignition of paper waste, fluff, fibres and lubricating grease in the support rollers of an escalator) suddenly turned into a blowtorch flame so hot it actually fused the metal of ticket machines in the station's top concourse. Nobody, anywhere, had seen anything like this before and the actual mechanism of the superheating was only explained through computer modelling (which wasn't very advanced in 1987). Amazingly, the dangers of permitting tobacco smoking on an underground railway were not recognised until then. I used King's Cross station practically every day in the 1970s. Sometimes, you could barely breathe in the train cars and your clothes smelled like an ashtray for most of the day.86.149.115.164 (talk) 15:39, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Filming the site

The article states "The site though, has been frequented by some skiers who wanted to explore its dark interiors and film the remains of the burned tunnel." This was not cited (though I am not sure WP standards would require it to be) - but I did look for this and have not been able to find it. Perhaps it is easier to find in German? Does anyone happen to have a link to this?

Prosecution based on the StGB

If the StGB is the German penal code, why was it the basis of a trial in Salzburg? Marnanel (talk) 14:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Deaths

"...taking the lives of 155 passengers"

I watched the NGC documentary on the disaster and it claimed that not all of the deaths were passengers on the burning funicular train. It said that some died from smoke on the non-burning descending car, and that the fire even killed some people at the top station. Does anyone have the numbers? Sjakkalle 08:46, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I just saw a documentary on Discovery Channel, and contrary to this article it claimed that the hydraulic fuel leak meant that the doors of the train wouldn't open and that the passengers had to smash windows to get out. Akihabara 03:36, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

According to Seconds From Disaster the hydraulic leak did prevent the doors from opening, but the driver was able to unlock the doors allowing many of the passengers to open them and leave the carriage. The people who ultimately survived had already escaped from a smashed window. Asa01 09:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Impossible sequence of events.

The article claims, "After the passenger train ascended into the tunnel shortly after 9:00 am, the electric fan heater in the unattended cabin at the lower end of the train caught fire, due to a design fault that caused the unit to over-heat".

This is not possible. The fan heater was a standard domestic mains operated fan heater (220 volts) that had been pressed into a service for which it was not designed. There was no source of 220 volt mains on the train while it was running between the terminal stations. The train only connected with the station 220 volt mains supply while it was at a stand at either terminal station. Once the train started to move, the connection was automatically lost as the collectors broke contact from the station conductors. All other on board electric services were supplied by low voltage battery recharged at the termini. This is pretty much standard design on similar funicular systems. Although it was determined that the fan heater did catch fire and ultimately cause leaking hydraulic fluid to catch fire (AIUI a pipe feeding a pressure gauge), the only time the fan heater itself could catch fire was while the train was standing in the station at either terminal end. It can only be that the fire started before the train departed but did not make itself apparent until the train was in the tunnel. The fire initially started, I believe, behind the panel where the heater was mounted. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 17:16, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

The Seconds From Disaster programme, referred to above, makes it clear that the fire started while the train was stationary in the lower terminus. Smoke and flames were noticed by train passengers prior to the train entering the tunnel, but they had no way of warning either the attendant or the control centre. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Numbers not consistent

170 people were in the tube:

• 168 people in train 1 ("167 passengers and one conductor boarded the funicular train")
• 2 people in train 2 ("The conductor and the sole passenger on the railway's second train")

167 people were listed as involved in the disaster:

• 12 people survived ("leaving 12 survivors", "12 people from the rear of the train ... escaped downwards")
• 155 people died ("The disaster claimed the lives of 155 people")

It leaves a difference of three people. What happened to those three people? Did they leave the train before the disaster evolved? I think the article should cover or at least mention the difference. MCEmperor (talk) 13:26, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

There are quite a number of errors in the article actually. Indeed, the numbers are wrong. At some point, someone has incorrectly assumed 155 is the number of deaths solely from the ascending train. That's wrong. 155 is the total number of deaths. See this. The correct numbers are 162 people, including the conductor, on the ascending train, 150 of whom died; 2 people died on the descending train (conductor and one passenger); 3 people died in the mountain station. I will fix this shortly.Tvx1 10:57, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Soapbox - change formulation of deleted passage?

Dear community,

@Julietdeltalima: asked me to post a question here instead on her own talk page. - It is about a section which got deleted yesterday with reference to the wiki soapbox: "The book also includes information about a rather disturbing celebration which happened right after the discharge of all accused persons at a local inn in Salzburg, which is known to have been attended by several forensic experts who argued in favour of the Gletscherbahnen. Most disturbingly, the judge, Dr. Manfred Seiss, was invited to and attended the victory celebration, calling into question his impartiality in the matter."
I agree that the wording here is not the way it should be and that it should be changed. I still believe that this information is important and people should know about it.
Is it ok for you to change the text so it sounds more factual?
I would propose to use this more reserved formulation: "The book also includes information about a celebration which happened right after the discharge of all accused persons at a local inn in Salzburg, which is known to have been attended by several forensic experts who argued in favour of the Gletscherbahnen. The judge, Dr. Manfred Seiss, was invited to and attended the victory celebration, calling into question his impartiality in the matter."

Appreciate your help.

BR

--Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 18:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Dear community and dear @Julietdeltalima: If there will be no objections until Sunday, I will add the new version of the above proposed formulation. Thank you and BR --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 15:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

My only deletion would be "calling into question his impartiality in the matter." As phrased, this phrase appears to be presented in Wikipedia's voice, or, alternately, to constitute inappropriate synthesis. If the authors of the book drew this conclusion, that should be made clear: "The judge, Manfred Seiss, attended the victory celebration, which, in the authors' view, calls into question the judge's impartiality in the matter." (Note my omission of the "Dr." per MOS:HONORIFIC.) If it is merely your interpretation, then that is not something that is appropriate for Wikipedia. Thanks for your patience. - Julietdeltalima (talk) 19:05, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Julietdeltalima: Thank you very much, you are absolutely right. It so happened that I had the exact same discussion about the exact same phrase in the German-speaking Wikipedia. And also there a user who is an actual lawyer wanted me to make sure that the formulation says that this is the opinion of the book's authors, which it is indeed. I guess I forgot to change that here too. So I am glad you reminded me. Thank's again and BR --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 22:36, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Hindsight Bias in Wikipedia Article?

Recently I came across the phenomenon of hindsight bias and I wondered whether this bias might also be present in this Wikipedia article... According to the hindsight bias, in retrospect it is overestimated how likely, predictable and/or inevitable an event was, and obviously a study has even found it in Wikipedia articles on accidents/catastrophes: doi:10.1007/s00426-017-0865-7 So I wondered whether that could be the case with this article, too, – and whether the disaster is presented as more predictable and inevitable than it actually was before. Maybe we should search again for information that would have spoken against its occurrence? Apparently, the hindsight bias occurs because of a retrospective focus on information that spoke FOR the event while ignoring (or not taking seriously) information that would have argued for another outcome, which then, of course, leads to the impression of inevitability and foreseeability... This is why I wondered whether this article might also be affected by hindsight bias and should thus be checked again for this? --2A02:810D:1300:38E5:F85C:D287:DDE4:E460 (talk) 18:06, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Dear Sir/Madam, your IP address shows that you connected from Berlin, Germany. If you can speak German, I recommend reading through the German Wiki Kaprun disaster article which includes a large section about an examination report from German prosecution which was done after the trial when the Gletscherbahnen tried to sue the producer of the hobby heater. I am convinced that the information shown from this examination report will change your mind. Thank you and BR, --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

• The article has significant tone and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS problems. EEng 20:36, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Dear @EEng: As I mentioned on your talk page yesterday I am open to improvements. I need detailed information from your side about what you think should be improved please. Thank you very much and BR --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 16:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

The problems are largely in the 155: Criminal Case Kaprun section. Some random points:

• Much of it is uncited, and the cites that are there are apparently to someone's deposition (which is a WP:PRIMARY source) and a prosecutor's report (which is at best on the borderline between primary and secondary).
• The official cause of the fire, a faulty heater, is widely rejected by the Austrian and German public seems to be cited, if it's cited at all, to the prosecutor's report. Really? A prosecutor's report commented on public opinion?

I wish I could help further but I don't have the sources and anyway my high-school German is completely inadequate to the task. Someday someone will come along who can really work with you to improve the article. In the meantime it's not the worst thing I've seen on Wikipedia though, again, the tone is a off. EEng 18:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Dear @EEng: Thank you very much. I improved the section about the book now and also removed some phrases with strong language or accusations etc. I hope that it looks better now. Thank you and BR --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 09:45, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

It is better, thank you. There's more to be done I'm sure but this is much improved. EEng 09:50, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Improving translations

@Dgpop: Hello! Please feel free to name any sections from the text which are hard to understand; I will change the translation etc. so it will become understandable. Thank you and BR --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 12:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi! Mostly I thought that the structure of "Investigation and trials" isn't obvious. Each bullet talks about particular indictments, but having a single bulleted list interrupted by explanatory text is hard to read and not usually how bulleted lists work. I'd use a table here if there wasn't so much text. I don't have a concrete suggestion, but it's worth thinking about. Dgpop (talk) 22:50, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Dgpop: Thanks for the info; I changed the style now; hope this is better. Thanks and BR --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 00:33, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a complex section with lots of info, but I think this is less confusing than the separated bulleted items. Dgpop (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

To start off, the headline "Time and that" makes no sense whatsoever. It's word salad; it has no meaning. Also, many of the sentences are missing verbs. For instance: "Two managing directors of the Austrian Swoboda Karosserie- und Stahlbau GesmbH (Carvatech since 2005), whose employees disassembled simple household fan heaters of the Fakir Hobby TLB brand instead of suitable Domo fan heaters and installed them in an improper in-house design in the valley-side driver's cabs." What about these managing directors? What did they do? Why are they even mentioned? There are also a number of confusing punctuation errors. Here: "Three employees of Gletscherbahnen Kaprun AG; specifically the technical director, the main manager and the manager; According to the indictment . . ." What are those semi-colons supposed to denote? Distracting and confusing. And then there's clumsy wording. Look at this example: "The German VDE, i.e. the publisher of the security stickers on the fan heater, determined a few years after the judgment that the stickers lost their validity due to the conversion of the devices and that the use of this fan heater in this way of installation generally no longer was allowed, regardless of the place of use." This would be better put as "The German VDE, which certified the fan heaters for domestic use, determined after the judgment that the modification of the heater by Swoboda invalidated its certification and that the method of installation was prohibited no matter what the fan was used for." I will say that my first reaction to "publisher of the security stickers" was a shocked laugh. It's not the sticker; it's what the sticker represents, which is certification. Certification is what matters, not stickers. (Also, from a North American point of view it sounds like you're saying that the VDE is the printing press that churned out the stickers, not the technical association that certified the heater as safe. The VDE doesn't "publish" stickers; their printers do. What a bizarre, bizarre way to put it!) 24.76.103.169 (talk) 08:02, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

This feels like a very poor automatic translation. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 16:02, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Changed title "Time after that" to "Investigation report from the Heilbronn Public Prosecutor's Office". Removed all semi-colons in the text. Replaced the poorly worded section about the German VDE by the phrasing which was suggested by 24.76.103.169. Added the sub-heading "Accused" in front of the enumeration of accused persons. Added the missing verb "accused" whenever a person/group of people is mentioned in this list. --Salzburger Nockerl (talk) 16:17, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I just chanced across this article and was amazed at how poorly it is presented. It is way, way too long, really badly formatted, and with such awful quality English that much of it is barely incomprehensible. Even if the English were perfect, it is not appropriately written at all. Text such as "The Salzburg judgment still causes incomprehension among many people today. "It cannot be, that 155 people die and nobody is to blame," is a common refrain." is in flagrant violation of WP:NPOV.

The blame lies with a user who I guess meant well but who does not speak anything like fluent English and clearly has not taken on board key policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. I tagged the article as needing cleanup. But frankly, I think trying to edit this mess into something encyclopaedic would be a huge waste of time. This version from 18 months ago, before the attentions of this user, is much shorter but much better in quality, and I suggest reverting to that. Large-scale addition of hopelessly bad translations does way more harm than good. 37.152.231.40 (talk) 01:40, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

It would appear that on 31 December 2022 someone has done [exactly that]. It might be worth reviewing [the version just prior to the revert] to see if there's any content worth salvaging and re-incorporating as this was such a large revert that swept up everything in that 3.5 year period, though I agree I think going back and restarting from that point had to happen. Rob.au (talk) 03:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)