Reopened inquest into Albert Luthuli's death highlights train driver's 'mistakes'

EVIDENCE from a 1967 inquest suggests that the driver of the steam train that allegedly killed Inkosi Albert Luthuli violated basic safety rules, which could have prevented the accident.

- BONGANI HANS

Such operational rules meant that the driver, Stephanus Lategan, should have blown the horn and slowed down the train on approaching the bridge where Luthuli was said to have been hit by the train.

Blowing the horn would have warned Luthuli, who was walking on the bridge, about the oncoming train, while the driver slowing down would have avoided the accident.

Continuing to give evidence at the reopened inquest into the death of Nobel Peace Prize winner at the Pietermaritzburg High Court yesterday, steam train expert Lesley Labuschagne said it was cast-in-stone rules that when approaching a railway line bridge, a tunnel and a pedestrian or vehicle crossing, the driver should blow the hooter and slow down the train as precautionary measures.

It was suspected that Luthuli was killed by apartheid operatives, and the train accident was used as a cover-up.

“Had the driver blown the whistle before entering the bridge, in this particular case, Chief Albert Luthuli or any other pedestrian would have known that there was a train coming,” said Labuschagne.