NTSB fails to determine reason for 2015 crash between SUV, train
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Federal safety investigators said Tuesday they can’t determine why an SUV ended up in the path of an oncoming commuter train, causing a crash that killed six people at a rail crossing in suburban New York in 2015.
Detailing the results of the nearly 2½-year investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board suggested evaluating the safety risks at some rail crossings and said the design of the train’s power-providing third rail played a role in the toll of deaths and injuries in the crash in the community of Valhalla. The NTSB concluded the SUV driver’s actions were the probable cause of the Westchester County wreck, but chairman Robert Sumwalt said those actions remained a mystery.
“We examined every possible situation and circumstance, and we could not arrive at a definite conclusion,” Mr. Sumwalt said at a meeting in Washington.
Ellen Brody drove onto the tracks, and when the gate arm came down onto her SUV, she got out and inspected the vehicle before getting back in and driving further onto the tracks. The impact of the crash sparked an explosion, and flames blasted into the Metro-North train, burning out the first rail car and killing Ms. Brody and five people aboard the train. More than a dozen others were injured.
Ms. Brody wasn’t on the phone, impaired or fatigued, NTSB investigators found. They found all the signals were working properly; the train’s brakes worked and were pulled on time; the warning signs at the crossing worked and were properly marked; the train wasn’t speeding; the engineer wasn’t fatigued or distracted; the track wasn’t faulty; and the emergency exit windows worked.
Mr. Sumwalt hypothesized that Ms. Brody wasn’t aware that she had driven into a railroad crossing while inching through traffic.
But Alan Brody said his late wife was placed in a perilous situation by a badly designed crossing and improper warning signs. A planned third set of flashing lights further up the road had never been installed, although the state had set aside money for them in 2009. The NTSB said the warning lights and signals at the grade crossing met all safety standards.
“How can that be?” Mr. Brody asked. “This is not, not in any way, going to fix any problem that we have in terms of the safety system infrastructure, with the possible exception of the third rail.”
The power-providing rail stayed in one piece, like a 340-foot-long spear, when it was ripped from the ground, investigators said. The rail then sliced through the first passenger car, contributing to the death toll.
NTSB investigators said the lack of a “controlled failure” mechanism that would split up third rails in such situations was a potential safety problem. The agency recommended that railways that use third rails evaluate the safety risks at groundlevel crossings like the one where the crash happened, in the town of Mount Pleasant. The town was weighing whether to close the crossing altogether.
Robert Vilensky, a lawyer for five injured train passengers, said the findings about the third rail show dangers that transit officials should have anticipated and alleviated.
The crash was the deadliest in the history of MetroNorth and while trains hit cars with some regularity across the country, the death toll usually is limited to the occupants of the vehicle that is hit.