NTSB: Steep crossing led to fatal bus crash
City officials say they can’t afford the fixes
JACKSON, Miss. — A train that crashed into a tour bus killing four in Mississippi last year stemmed from the railroad and the city failing to improve an unsafe rail crossing, federal safety regulators concluded Tuesday.
The March 2017 crash also injured 38 Texas tourists when their bus got stuck on a steep Biloxi rail crossing and was hit by a CSX Corp. freight train.
The National Transportation Safety Board found that the probable cause of the crash was “the failure of CSX Transportation and the city of Biloxi to coordinate and take action to improve the safety of the Main Street grade crossing, a high-profile vertical crossing on which motor vehicles were known to ground frequently.”
Meeting in Washington, the NTSB also issued 11 recommendations for preventing future crashes that focus on railroads and governments doing more to evaluate rail crossings that are so steep they pose safety risks.
Biloxi spokesman Vincent Creel said the city would review the findings. However, Creel said, the city doesn’t have enough money to rebuild its 29 crossings, all of which are steeper than current road-design guidelines.
CSX spokesman Bryan Tucker said the company is reviewing the NTSB’s recommendations.
“As always, we are working with our federal regulatory partners and the communities through which we operate to further enhance the safety of our nation’s rail network,” Tucker said in a statement.
The board concluded that the tour bus driver’s decision to take a scenic route along U.S. 90 and use a commercial GPS mapping system played no role in the accident. Although the GPS system contained information about the high-profile crossing, the driver wouldn’t have realized how steep the back side of the crossing was until it was too late, investigators said.
Problems have existed at the Main Street crossing for decades but seem to have become worse after CSX maintenance raised the track elevation in 2014, the NTSB said.
The board recommended that railroads, traffic engineers and regulators develop guidance for when states and localities should ban trucks, buses and other at-risk vehicles from high-profile crossings.