The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) used crowded commuter trains to inspect potential safety threats in tunnels, a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on last year’s fatal tunnel fire found.
The report said Metro operators used passenger-filled trains to inspect reports of smoke or other rail trouble in a tunnel, which the NTSB called a “reprehensible” action, reports NBC Washington. Carol Glover, 61, died and 91 others were injured after a yellow line train got stuck in a tunnel at L’Enfant Station and filled with smoke in 2015.
It is unclear whether officials knowingly sent the yellow line train into danger, but NTSB reports the Rail Operations Control Center would regularly tell operators of crowded trains to perform track inspections. Metro officials broke procedure during the L’Enfant Plaza incident, failing to stop all trains at the first sign of smoke, which would have kept the yellow line train at the platform instead of in the tunnel.
Investigators learned electrical arcing sparked the fire, but they do not know what exactly caused that particular incident. NTSB cited a number of contributory factors preceding the fire, including decades of poor maintenance practices.
“WMATA [Washington Metro Area Transit Authority], historically speaking, has had a severe learning disability,” Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB board member, told The Hill. “Quite simply, they have not been willing to learn from prior events. Learning disabilities are tragic in children, but they are fatal in organizations. And literally that is true in this case.”
Investigators found the fire detector in L’Enfant Plaza had a loose wire rendering it useless. Missing electrical seals on the track and smoke fans blowing in the wrong direction also contributed to the disaster. Metro officials waited 15 minutes before calling emergency personnel to report the fire.
“Whatever could go wrong that afternoon, did go wrong,” Sumwalt added.
Emergency personnel also came under scrutiny in the NTSB report. Despite an expected response time of a little over a minute, it took four minutes for emergency personnel to dispatch firefighters to the scene. The D.C. Fire Department battalion chief on duty reportedly lacked necessary experience, and initially prevented the Metropolitan Police Department from assisting the response.
The NTSB concluded the D.C. Fire Department is unprepared to handle a mass casualty incident in Metro tunnels.
The Glover family is suing the D.C. Metro for negligence in a $50 million lawsuit. Now that the NTSB findings were released, the lawsuit can move forward.
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