Italian truck-train crash driver returning to Lithuania

Marius Vencius, director of the TLB transport company, told BNS Lithuania the driver of the truck that was involved in a crash, which killed at least two people, was not detained. He was questioned and is coming back to Lithuania today.

“We know nothing about any suspicions. We only know that Italian officers questioned him from the morning till the evening and released him. So it’s a good sign,” Vencius told BNS Lithuania.

In his words, a lawyer now represents the company and the driver, Darius Zujus, 39. The lawyer is cooperating with local law enforcement working on the tragedy’s conclusion.

The company’s representative reiterated that initial evidence show the crash, which took place when the truck was hit at a crossing by a train and several train cars derailed, was caused by a failure of the crossing control system.

“We have received several CCTV recordings from nearby homes and they show, as much as we can see, that the truck entered the crossing with no signals on and the boom barriers were raised. After it entered the crossing, the signal went off in 5–10 seconds and the barriers started going down and then the train came. We see that the driver really did not enter the crossing when the restrictive signal was on,” Vencius said.

The 15min.lt news website reported last week that Italian law enforcement brought suspicions against Zujus on Thursday for causing an involuntary train crash.

At least two people were killed and 18 people were injured in the crash on May 24 when the Lithuania-registered truck entered the crossing, heading to a nearby warehouse. The driver was sober.