Signalman playing game on phone moments before train crash that killed 12

The death toll from a German train crash rose to 12 on Wednesday hours after a signal controller was arrested, accused of playing a game on his mobile phone game just before the accident. The latest victim was a 46-year-old man who died of his injuries in a Munich hospital more than two months after the disaster. His death was announced as investigators questioned the signal controller who has told them he "turned on his mobile phone during his shift on the morning of the accident". He faces possible charges of causing death through negligence over the collision in Bavaria in February.

(He)… started an online computer game and played actively … until just before the collision of the trains.

German investigators

The man admitted to playing the game but denied being distracted by it, said prosecutors. The controller gave the trains an incorrect signal and then hit the wrong buttons when issuing a distress signal, it is alleged. It meant the distress signal was not heard by the train conductors, the prosecutor’s office said. The trains, carrying about 150 people, crashed at high speed between the spa town of Bad Aibling and Kolbermoor, near the Austrian border.

German train crash