The driver of the Metrorail train that fatally struck two track inspectors in November on the Yellow Line failed to properly apply the train’s emergency brakes and will be forbidden from operating trains or buses in the future, Metro officials said Wednesday.
The employee, whom Metro has not identified, is on workers’ compensation leave. She will remain employed once she returns from the leave, but not as an operator.
Steven Fiel, Metrorail’s chief operating officer, said Metro’s ongoing investigation indicated that the brake, which would have stopped the train almost immediately, was not used as soon as it should have been.
“It is not a question of whether it was applied, but when it was applied,” he said. “We have operating protocol; and what happened that day does not follow the protocol, based on our preliminary investigation.”
Metro intends to finish its investigation by the “first week of February,” Field said. The federal National Transportation Safety Board still is investigating this incident and another Metro fatal incident that occurred in May, killing an employee on the track just outside the Dupont Circle station. An NTSB spokesman said Wednesday the agency still was looking into both incidents and had not reached any conclusions.
Metro had to make a decision about the train operator’s fate before the investigations finish because its contract with the operators’ union requires them to notify employees of disciplinary action within 20 business days of an incident. For this fatal crash, which occurred Nov. 30, the deadline was Dec. 29. Metro notified the union and the employee of the operating ban that day but did not publicly announce it until Wednesday.
The incident occurred around 9:30 a.m. Nov. 30 when an empty four-car Yellow Line train on its way to the Alexandria Rail Yard hit two workers from behind as they inspected an elevated track between the Huntington and Eisenhower Avenue Metrorail stations. One of the inspectors died instantly, the other a week later.
