400 Passengers Onboard High-Speed Train Survive Near-Miss After Driver Jumps from Cab on Christmas Eve

Mar. 15, 2025

More than 400 train passengers avoided harm on Christmas Eve after a driver jumped from the cab, leaving the train unmanned, the company says.

A SNCF’s low-cost Ouigo TGV train passes at high speed in the direction of Paris on June 2, 2021.DENIS CHARLET/AFP via Getty

DENIS CHARLET/AFP via Getty

The system kicked in and safely brought the train to a stop on the tracks.

The French transport minister, Philippe Tabarot, said Rejony had been suffering from personal problems; Tabarot also praised the train’s safeguard system for saving the travelers onboard at the time of Rejony’s death.

“The driver wished to end his life in a solitary action,” Tabarot said on CNews television, perTheTimes. “It could have been more serious if he had wanted to derail his train.”

One of the train’s personnel told French outletLe Parisienthat they had assumed the train’s driver was incapacitated when the train came to a halt. Another recalled, “We really couldn’t understand what had happened. No one imagined the worst,”The Timesreported.

A member of the train staff eventually walked up the track, forced open the driver’s door from the outside and found it empty. This prompted emergency service personnel to search for the driver, whose body was later found beside the tracks, according toThe Times.

Both SCNF and the French authorities have launched inquiries into the incident,France24reported.

source: people.com