NTSB faults ‘failing’ Amtrak culture for accident

摘要

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined that the April 2016 fatal derailment of a train near Chester, Pennsylvania, was caused by deficient safety management across many levels of the organization and the lack of a clear, consistent, and accepted vision for safety. A backhoe operator and a track supervisor were killed and 39 people were injured when Amtrak train 89, en route from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., struck a backhoe. According to the NTSB, the train engineer saw equipment and people working on and near the track and initiated emergency braking that slowed the train from 106 miles per hour (mph) to approximately 99 mph at the time of the impact. “Amtrak’s safety culture is failing, and is primed to fail again, until and unless Amtrak changes the way it practices safety management,” stated NTSB Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt.