The derailment of tram 9 in Milan: the shadow of the smartphone and the mystery of the twelve seconds

A breakthrough in the investigation into the derailment on Viale Vittorio Veneto, at the corner with Via Lazzaretto, in Milan of the tram line 9, which went off the tracks at high speed crashing into a building. The toll is tragic with two dead, Ferdinando Favia and Okon Johnson Lucky, and dozens injured.

The Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan and the Local Police have focused their investigations on a hypothesis that is both clear and disturbing: a fatal distraction due to smartphone use while driving.

The heart of the investigation for manslaughter and injuries revolves around one piece of information: twelve seconds. According to initial reconstructions, based on the contents of the cell phone seized from the driver, the man would have ended a call about 12 seconds before the impact. In that brief interval, the tram would have "skipped" a stop and approached a switch to the left at about 50 km/h, irreparably going off the tracks.

For the Milan Transport Company (ATM), the possibility that the driver was on the phone constitutes a “serious violation” of internal regulations and safety standards. The company's position is unequivocal: using a cell phone while in motion is strictly prohibited, because on such crowded vehicles and within a complex network, every possible source of distraction must be eliminated. In contrast, the defense's reconstruction argues otherwise. Lawyers Benedetto Tusa and Mirko Mazzali assert that the tram driver was not on the phone at the time of the crash. The incriminating call, lasting a total of 3 minutes and 40 seconds, would have ended "at least a minute and a half" before the disaster. The lawyers are confident that the comparison between GPS tracking and call logs, along with the technical analysis of the data, will exonerate their client from the charge of distraction.

To resolve the conflict between the accusatory hypothesis and the defense's thesis, investigators are proceeding with a delicate “chronometric realignment”. The goal is to uniquely synchronize the times of the forensic copy of the smartphone with those of the “black box” of the tram. Only the analysis and comparison with the call logs and the review of images from the cameras inside the cabin will allow for a definitive determination of whether the driver was distracted by the device during those crucial seconds.

To complicate matters, alongside the distraction theory, there is the possibility of a medical issue. The train driver reported experiencing a sudden pain in his foot that would have caused a “vasovagal syncope”, preventing him from maintaining control of the vehicle. Investigators, who searched the ATM control room to acquire communications, are checking whether the incident was reported to the operations center. According to a report from TGR Lombardia, such a report did not arrive in time.