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Saturday, April 5, 2014

Driver Claims Sleeping Caused Train To Ram Into Escalator at Chicago Airport

Driver Claims Sleeping Caused Train To Ram Into Escalator at Chicago Airport
tags: Timeline 2014, public driver error, dozing driver, train, failure to stop, fired, non-terrorist

March 24, 2014. Driver Claims Sleeping Caused Train To Ram Into Escalator at Chicago Airport At the Chicago O'Hare airport station, a an eight-car train rammed beyond the stop with such force that it climbed the escalator adjacent to the passenger platform. The driver admitted she may have dozed off, and she was fired as it was her second safety violation. She had started in January and previously admitted to dozing February 1st, and had missed a blue line stop. CTA doubts her story as she had to step out to open the train doors and look out an open window for passengers before closing the doors just minutes before at the previous stop. The union claimed she had a overworked schedule, but CTA believed it was an unlikely excuse as “There was nothing about that operator’s work schedule that suggests fatigue should have played a role in her performance”.

Similar incidents:

2013 NYC Metro North Bronx Train Derailment On December 1, 2013, a Metro-North Railroad passenger train derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx, killing 4 people and injuring 63 others.A freight train had derailed on the other side of the same station four months earlier.The NTSB found the train was going 82 miles per hour as it entered a 30-mph curve. Driver William Rockefeller 20-year veteran of the MTA and has clean disciplinary record was first heard to have said that the brakes did not work. Later the driver told first responders "he began to daze, thinking about nothing in particular and the train began to derail". He did not apply brakes until it was already derailing.

September 30, 2013 Chicago commuter "ghost train" starts for unknown reasons, drives by itself out of a service track and collides with a train loading passengers. Officials say it looks like a mechanical malfunction. Investigators have uncovered no no sign of criminal activity, though the train requires a key to access the control booth, and another key to start the train, and defeating safety systems which will stop the train without a driver

There are also trucks crashing into expressways claiming to be drowsy.


No connection to terrorism was even speculated by media or bloggers.

Sources:

Chicago Tribune ‎- by Richard Wronski ‎- 13 hours ago
The operator also acknowledged she previously dozed off onduty Feb. 1 and had missed a Blue Line stop at Belmont, theNTSB said
operator also acknowledged she previously dozed off on duty Feb. 1 and had missed a Blue Line stop at Belmont, the NTSB said... one-year CTA employee, had only been operating trains since January. ...
Union President Robert Kelly has said the operator, a fill-in employee, had worked a “very chaotic” schedule before the crash.
Despite the operator’s claims of fatigue, the CTA on Friday reiterated its position that this was an unlikely excuse.
“There was nothing about that operator’s work schedule that suggests fatigue should have played a role in her performance,” spokesman Brian Steele said.
The agency said the operator worked 55 hours in the seven days preceding the incident and was off for 18 hours before the shift during which the wreck occurred.
The CTA contends the operator had to perform physical tasks indicating she was alert in the minutes preceding the crash.
Because of the configuration of the Blue Line stations, operators have to step out of their cabs to manually open the train doors, look out an open window for passengers before closing the doors, then return to the cab, Steele said... [did this only 5 minutes before at previous stop].
..required to manually reduce the train speed about 45 seconds before it entered the tunnel into the station, Steele said....required the operator’s attention minutes, and likely less than a minute, before the crash,” he said.

Operator of crashed O'Hare train fired
http://cnn.it/1fIXNla


he driver of a train that jumped the tracks last month at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport -- after having reportedly "dozed off" -- has been fired, a transit authority spokeswoman said Friday.
The early morning incident at one of the nation's busiest airports was the operator's second serious safety violation, according to Chicago Transit Authority spokeswoman Tammy Chase. That said, Chase said the woman was primarily terminated because of the severity of that crash, which injured 32 people

 wreck occurred at 2:52 a.m. on March 24, when an eight-car train failed to stop at the end of the Blue Line when it arrived at the airport station, a Chicago fire official said. The lead car appeared to have climbed an escalator adjacent to the passenger platform.
"I've investigated many accidents and trains do different things," National Transportation Safety Board investigator Tim DePaepe said of the train climbing the escalator. "It's all about kinetic force. I have not seen an accident like this, personally."
A union official told reporters last month that the train's driver may have fallen asleep, CNN affiliate WLS reported.
"There are indications that she dozed off, yes,"






    1. Mirror.co.uk ‎- 4 hours ago
      More than 30 people were injured when the train derailed at around 3am. ... The train driver who crashed at a Chicago airport station after ...

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    19 hours ago - More than 30 people were injured, though none seriously, when theChicago Transit Authority train crashed early on the morning of March 24.
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    6 hours ago - Read more: Chicago train mounts platform, crashes into escalators ... policies as the result of an internal review after the crash atO'Hare. ... a suburban Chicago station during the morning rush hour, injuringat least 33 people.
  7. Chicago officials fire train driver in O'Hare airport crash - The Guardian

    www.theguardian.com › News › World news › Chicago

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    18 hours ago - Operator in March derailment that injured more than 30 passengers had admitted she dozed off before the crash.
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