NTSB: Sleep apnea, speed tied to train crashes
The engineers of two commuter trains that slammed into New York City- area stations in the last year — killing one person and injuring more than 200 others — were both suffering from undiagnosed sleep apnea and have no memory of the crashes, according to investigative documents made public Thursday.
Both trains were going more than double the speed limit and crashed at stations that had been exempted from federal regulations requiring automatic speed controls that could’ve slowed or stopped them.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the common circumstances of the Sept. 29, 2016, New Jersey Transit crash in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the Jan. 4, 2017, Long Island Rail Road crash in Brooklyn warranted combining findings and recommendations in a single report to be released early next year.
The 2,500 pages of documents 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 accelerated the debate over testing for the rest- stealing disorder in train engineers and truck drivers, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., pushing for governmentmandated screenings. Schumer called the Trump administration’s decision last month to abandon a plan to enact a testing requirement “unconscionable.”
“We can’t have train engineers with undiagnosed sleep apnea at risk of falling asleep at the switch,” Schumer said.
Sleep apnea is especially troubling in the transportation industry because sufferers are repeatedly awakened as their airway closes and their breathing stops, leading to dangerous daytime drowsiness.
Former Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg, who issued a safety advisory in December urging railroads to test for sleep apnea, said the Hoboken and Brooklyn crashes were “further confirmation” that undiagnosed and untreated sleep apnea “is a danger to rail passengers, subway commuters and everyone on America’s highways.”