NTSB: Sleep apnea, speed cited in NYC train crashes

The engineers of two com- muter trains that slammed into New York City-area stations in the last year — kill- ing one person and injur- ing more than 200 others — were both suffering from undiagnosed sleep apnea and have no memory of the crashes, according to investigative documents made pub- lic Thursday.

Both trains were going more than double the speed limit and crashed at stations that had been exempted from federal regulations requir- ing automatic speed controls that could have slowed or stopped them.

The National Transporta- tion Safety Board said the common circumstances of the Sept. 29, 2016, New Jersey Transit crash in Hobo- ken, N.J., and the Jan. 4, 2017, Long Island Rail Road crash in Brooklyn warranted combin- ing findings and recommen- dations in a single report to be released early next year.

The 2,500 pages of doc- uments released Thursday, including medical reports and interview transcripts, offer a glimpse into what investigators have learned, but don’t include conclusions on what caused the crashes.

The sleep apnea findings reignited the debate over testing for the rest-stealing disor- der in train engineers, with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York pushing for government-man- dated screenings. Schumer called the Trump administration’s decision last month to abandon a testing requirement “unconscionable.”

“We can’t have train engi- neers with undiagnosed sleep apnea at risk of falling asleep at the switch,” Schumer said.

Sleep apnea sufferers are repeatedly awakened as their airways closeand their breathing stops, leading to dangerous daytime drowsiness.

The NTSB has cited sleep apnea in the probable cause of 10 highway and rail accidents in the past 17 years, including an undiagnosed 2013 case in the engineer of a Metro-North commuter train in New York City that sped into a 30 mph curve at 82 mph and crashed, killing four people.

The Hoboken and Brooklyn engineers both were morbidly obese, a sleep apnea risk factor, but weren’t diagnosed with the disorder until after the crashes, according to the NTSB documents. NJ Transit had a screening program at the time of the Hoboken crash. The LIRR’s started after the Brooklyn crash. Both engineers are now being treated with pressurized breathing masks.

NJ Transit engineer Thomas Gallagher — 6-foot and 322 pounds around the time of the crash — told investigators he only remembered looking at his watch and the speedometer and activating the horn and bell before his packed rush-hour train slammed into Hoboken Terminal. Gallagher, then 48, told investigators the next thing he remembered was a “loud bang.”

A conductor standing on a platform told investigators he couldn’t see the engineer through the cab window as the train rumbled into the station at more than double the 10 mph speed limit, indicating Gallagher may have slumped or fallen.

Falling debris from the impact killed a woman standing on a platform. About 110 people aboard the train were hurt.