APRIL 28, 2015
WASHINGTON, DC
Federal crash investigators recommended automatic braking
systems in subways Tuesday after deciding that a sleeping operator caused the
crash of a Chicago Transit Authority train at O'Hare International Airport last
year.
The National Transportation Safety Board also urged transit
agencies to educate schedulers about the risks of operator fatigue, based on
night shifts and rest times between shifts.
"The safety improvements that we have recommended today
are all the more necessary because any mass transit accident has the potential
to become a mass casualty event," chairman Christopher Hart said of
recommendations for transit agencies nationwide. "There is simply no place
in mass transit for an operator to fall asleep at the controls of a
train."
The immediate cause of the crash March 24, 2014, at about 3
a.m., was well known. The operator, Brittney Haywood, who was 25 at the time,
acknowledged falling asleep as the train approached the station.
Haywood told investigators the day after the crash that she
didn't sleep much the day before the crash and was tired. She often volunteered
for overtime shifts and worked 12 consecutive days before the crash, and nearly
69 hours the week of the crash.
"I became sleepy and I nodded off into the terminal of
O'Hare," she told investigators, according to a transcript. "I'm not
clear as to when I actually dozed off," she said later.
The crash drew national attention because it injured 40
passengers and Haywood, as the front of the train came to rest on an escalator
leading to the terminal. The crash caused an estimated $9 million in damage.
The train's front car struck a bumping post intended to stop
a train at 23 mph and then skidded nearly 30 feet to the escalator and 24 feet
up the escalator, according to investigators.
Investigators found that triggers didn't begin to apply
brakes until the train passed, leaving too little time to stop a train at 25
mph.
After the accident, CTA reduced the speed of trains approaching
platforms to 15 mph from 25 mph and moved up triggers that are supposed to stop
trains to 78 feet from the end of the platform.
Federal investigators found that the triggers weren't geared
to stop an eight-car train moving faster than 15 mph. The safety board
unanimously recommended that the CTA install automatic braking systems on all
its trains called transmission-based train control, and that the Federal
Transit Administration require such systems nationwide.
For its personnel, the CTA already extended off-duty time
between shifts to 10 hours from 8 hours to allow workers more sleep. The CTA
also prohibited overtime shifts for first-year workers, who tended to seek
overtime because of lower wages.
The safety board recommended that transit schedulers
nationwide receive training so that they understand the implications of night
shifts and overtime shifts in making workers drowsy.