Sleep apnea led to wrecks

Undiagnosed sleep disorders caused both a deadly 2016 Hoboken train crash and a similar Long Island Rail Road accident last year, federal investigators said Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that engineers in both cases were suffering from obstructive sleep apnea and had passed out as their trains entered the terminals.

Investigators ruled that both NJ Transit and the MTA failed the public and their workers by neglecting to screen those in critical safety positions for the condition, which can cause sufferers to lose consciousness for lack of proper sleep.

NJ Transit bosses didn’t notice as one of their engineers gained a dangerous amount of weight, and didn’t bother to test him for sleep apnea in the years before his condition led to the deadly 2016 Hoboken train crash, a doctor testified before the NTSB.

“The engineer had gained about 90 pounds since 2013, raising his BMI, and because of that he should have been subject to additional testing,” Dr. Nicholas Webster told the board.

The crash killed a woman who was waiting on the platform and injured 114 people on board the train.

“The failure of New Jersey Transit to follow internal guidance and refer at-risk safetysensitive personnel including the engineer and other at-risk crew members for obstructive sleep apnea screening is evidence of a systemic failure of a critical safety system to ensure these personnel were fit for duty,” the federal report says.

In a similar incident in January 2017, a Long Island Rail Road train crashed into the bumper at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn, injuring 108 people.

In both cases, the report blamed the Federal Railroad Administration for not mandating sleep-apnea testing.

NJ Transit and the MTA started screening all of their employees in critical safety positions after the crashes.