Schumacher, the investigators: “Not excessive speed”

The Albertville Prosecutor's Office, which is investigating the skiing accident involving Michael Schumacher, held a press conference in which it explained the dynamics of the German's accident and updated on the status of the investigation.

“We are here to update you on the investigation. I want no false information to be spread. The Schumacher family requests that their right to privacy be respected."

THE DYNAMICS OF THE ACCIDENT – “The ski hit a rock, Schumacher lost his balance and hit a rock 8 meters away from the slope. Schumacher was first resuscitated on the trackside, then taken to hospital. The footage from Schumacher's helmet camera is clear and confirmed this. We know the route followed by Michael. The video will be disclosed in a subsequent report. It will also be viewed by another expert. We can say precisely what the facts were,” commented Albertville prosecutor Patrick Quincy.

DIFFICULT TO ESTABLISH SPEED – “It is difficult to determine the exact speed. Schumacher is an excellent skier, difficult to estimate the speed in Km/h but he was not excessively fast”.

“We heard from the people who were on site, we carried out inspections and we listened to experts on ski safety. We saw the images from the camera that Schumacher had. We have determined with certainty the speed and location of the accident. I heard about a video made by a tourist, personally I want to keep this confidential. There is maximum attention in the collection of all the elements"

“As far as we are concerned we have this footage and we will study it. We will do it with the experts. If we succeed we will verify the speed but this is not the important aspect to reach the conclusion of the investigations. The helmet and the camera came into our possession at different times. The GoPro had been kept by the family. We have not yet been able to complete the hearings of all the people involved. We don't know if he was helping anyone, the video lasts two minutes, what can be seen with a camera of that type is limited vision, it is known. There may be some responsibilities, we can say this, but it is still too early to say for sure. About 50 accidents have occurred in that area but we are talking about the entire promontory, about 50 ski resorts and there is intense activity on a sporting level."

“REPORTING RULES RESPECTED” – The rules of "track reporting" in Meribel were respected: the prosecutor said so. According to one of the investigating gendarmes, present at the conference, "the skis were not the cause of the accident". “No deficiencies were detected. We can only hypothesize an error, but it is a hypothesis, of insufficient signage. At the end of the investigation we will have all the elements and we will be able to answer the question of responsibility, at the moment we are still gathering the elements, we have to wait for the experts' response".

Further updates coming soon.