‘This is a case of increasing doubt’
President of the Portuguese Firefighters League (LBP) António Nunes has today defended the creation of an independent technical commission to carry out the investigation into the accident involving a fire-fighting vehicle in Odemira which resulted in the death of one firefighter, and serious injuries in three others.
“In a situation like this and with some alarm being created, perhaps it is worth rethinking whether an independent technical committee outside the vehicle owner, which is ANEPC (National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority) should not be responsible for preparing the investigation into the accident,” he told Lusa
Nunes was speaking in Odemira, in the district of Beja, on the sidelines of the funeral today of firefighter Dinis Conceição, who died after the engine he was travelling in “lost control” on its way back to the station on Wednesday night.
Recalling that ANEPC has already launched an investigation into the incident, the president of LBP pointed out that this investigation is carried out by the “entity that owns the vehicle, by the entity that created the specifications for its purchase and by the entity that received it.
“I have no doubt about the independence that may lie with the inspectors who are carrying out the audit, but we would perhaps like to see the situation, since there are independent technical committees for other situations,” he stressed.
This case, António Nunes pointed out, is “a situation of increasing doubt” and, with an independent commission investigating the causes, “perhaps there would be a guarantee that the conclusions would not be subject to any type of questioning”.
“We run the risk of other associations, if this pressure continues, whether on social media or even in the media, questioning the safety of the vehicle,” he added, given that the batch to which the vehicle involved in the accident belonged had a total of 57 engines, and some reports have already said that certain fire stations are not using them, because of their perceived ‘anomalies’.
As Nunes explained, the LBP has a record of 255 firefighters killed on duty since 1980, which represents “a very high number, which cannot be compared with any other security force”.
“The LBP came to offer its condolences to the commander, the fire brigade, the family and, above all, to represent all the firefighters in Portugal, who are sad,” he told Lusa, regarding his presence at the funeral.
The vehicle belonging to Odemira firefighting corporation skidded off the road on Wednesday night, on the municipal road that connects Boavista dos Pinheiros to Saboia, in Odemira, leaving five firefighters injured, aged between 37 and 43.
Firefighter Dinis Conceição, 38, was transported by helicopter to Hospital de São José in Lisbon, but ended up dying in the early hours of Friday. He was a professional firefighter in the corporation and belonged to a permanent intervention team (EIP), made up of five members.
Two firefighters remain in hospital, one at Portimão and the other at Santa Maria, in Lisbon, while the other two have already been discharged and are recovering at home.
On Wednesday, the firefighters had been called to intervene “in an authorised burn” in Saboia, which “got out of control”. The team was returning home when the fire-fighting vehicle went into its skid.
The Emergency Services and Civil Protection Inspectorate opened an investigation into the road accident on the day of the incident, a source from the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) told Lusa – explaining that this is a procedure carried out whenever there is an accident involving a fire brigade vehicle.
meantime, the Odemira corporation commander, Luís Oliveira, has stressed that inspections by ANEPC and the GNR’s Traffic Accident Criminal Investigation Unit are underway and that he wants to see the expert report to determine whether the skid “was caused by a mechanical defect or by human error”.
President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Minister of Internal Administration, Margarida Blasco, were also at today’s funeral, but did not make any statements to journalists upon entering.
Source: LUSA
