The National Transportation Safety Board has called for a public hearing into the summer’s deadly Metro crash, according to an e-mail obtained by The Examiner.
The board voted for the hearing and scheduled it for the week of Feb. 22, according to the e-mail sent to officials who may be asked to testify.
The hearing highlights the importance of the crash and gives the agency a chance to air broader problems that may have been to blame.
“It’s excellent that they are going to have a hearing to focus on the safety culture and safety practices of Metro,” said Jim Hall, a former NTSB chairman. He added that the safety programs at the transit agency “have needed attention for years.”
The NTSB does not call for hearings for each case it investigates. It has had five hearings so far this year but voted not to hold one in such high-profile cases as the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse.
“The hearings are usually reserved for things the board thinks have significant safety significance,” Hall said. “It’s an exercise in public accountability.”
So far investigators have pointed to failures in the transit system’s automatic train safety system that is supposed to alert trains — and even stop them — when they get too close.
So far investigators have pointed to failures in the transit system’s automatic train safety system that is supposed to alert trains — and even stop them — when they get too close.
For the hearings, investigators can subpoena a wide array of witnesses. Those hearings can last for several days.
A spokeswoman for the agency had said Tuesday she was not aware of any hearings being called for yet.
The focus so far as been on equipment, some of which is decades old. But the transit agency had problems with even new components placed in that section of the track as long as 18 months before the crash.
The system failures prompted the NTSB to send out urgent alerts to transit agencies and railroads around the country that may use similar systems. But the NTSB does not have authority to enforce recommendations. For example, the NTSB had urged Metro for years to get rid of the Rohr 1000 Series rail cars involved in the June 22 crash because they were not “crashworthy.” But the transit agency has said it cannot afford to replace its oldest cars, as they make up about a quarter of its fleet. Metro continues to run the rail cars.
Paired bills pending in Congress are seeking to create a federal oversight agency that would inspect and investigate transit systems in the same way as airlines. Currently, a tristate group that lacks an office or even permanent Web site is charged with overseeing Metro. But the only punishment it can enforce is to ask for 5 percent of Metro’s federal funding to be withheld. The funding has never been pulled.
