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from the GIGO?-DINO!-Data-In-Nothing-Out dept.
The National Transportation Safety Board has said that a data recorder recovered from the crash of a New Jersey Transit train in Hoboken recorded no information about the incident:
A data recorder that could have helped investigators answer why a New Jersey Transit train crashed in Hoboken last week was not working, the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday. "Unfortunately, the event recorder was not functioning during this trip," NTSB Vice Chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr said. Investigators said the data recorder was over 20 years old.
The NTSB is looking for a second data recorder from a newer passenger car. The recorder could provide information on the train's speed, use of brakes and throttle position. The train's engineer, identified as Thomas Gallagher, told NTSB investigators the train entered the Hoboken station at 10 mph. Witnesses have said the train was speeding as it entered the station instead of slowing down.
New Jersey Transit had already been under scrutiny for safety issues before the crash. A roof (possibly containing asbestos) which had collapsed on top of the train during the accident is now preventing investigators from inspecting the scene.
Also at Reuters and The Guardian .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:27PM
Leaving aside the fact that the root cause is "total inability to run a railroad", the description sounds a lot like the
"Moorgate disaster" in the UK in about 1980.
Not sure of the official version, but people working on the railway at the time described it thusly:
The driver - massively deprived of sleep due to appalling shift management and impending wedding of
eldest daughter - fell asleep, only to wake up as the train was entering the terminus. Panicking
he grabbed the lever, and pulled it - unfortunately the lever was the throttle, not the brake, and
he powered into the end of concrete-filled tunnel at about 30MPH. Quite a few people died.
OK, the driver did it, but if you run the system in such a way that mission critical decision makers have
no sleep, bad things happen.
As I remember it, the official version was a little less forthcoming with the facts until they had all escaped
through the leaks.
Disclaimer: I don't currently work for any railways anywhere, and know nothing of the current shift practices,
but I did until shortly before this incident.