The Reporter (Lansdale, PA)

NTSB: Lax safety culture led to crash that killed 2

- By Michael R. Sisak

Federal investigat­ors said Tuesday they found major lapses in how Amtrak deals with safety, including more than two dozen hazardous conditions at the work zone near Philadelph­ia where a train slammed into a maintenanc­e backhoe last year and killed two workers.

Chief among them, investigat­ors said, were a foreman’s failure to make sure dispatcher­s were still rerouting trains from the area under repair near Philadelph­ia and the crew’s failure to use a device that would have automatica­lly blocked trains from accessing those tracks.

“Had any of these issues been addressed, the accident may have been prevented,” National Transporta­tion Safety Board investigat­or Joe Gordon said at a public meeting on the crash at the agency’s Washington headquarte­rs.

The April 2016 crash killed backhoe operator Joseph Carter Jr. and supervisor Peter Adamovich. About 40 passengers on the New York to Savannah, Georgia, train were injured.

Amtrak workers told investigat­ors that the government-owned railroad emphasized on-time performanc­e over safety, yet plastered employee lounges with big, red signs reminding them to “think safety” and threatened to fire workers who broke certain rules.

NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said Amtrak’s grab bag of priorities created a culture of fear and non-compliance where bending the rules seemed acceptable to “get the job done.”

“Amtrak’s lack of a strong safety culture is at the heart of this accident,” investigat­or Mike Hoepf said.

Amtrak’s co-chief executive officers, Richard Anderson and Charles “Wick” Moorman sent a letter to employees Tuesday updating them on steps the railroad has taken to transform its safety culture since the crash.

They include hiring a new head of safety, compliance and training, issuing alerts and advisories to remind workers of rules and an improved worker-protection training program.

“Our customers expect us to operate safely and our jobs and lives depend on it,” the co-CEOs wrote. “We can and will do better. Our pledge to you is that we will do everything possible to help move us forward.”

Carter’s family is suing Amtrak for negligence. Their lawyer, Tom Kline, said they can only hope his death “will result in wholesale changes” in safety at Amtrak.

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