Safety Lapses Preceded Philadelphia's Deadly Amtrak Crash: NTSB

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Two maintenance workers were killed last year when a speeding Amtrak train slammed into a backhoe near Philadelphia, and now federal investigators said they discovered major lapses in Amtrak's safety culture, including more than two dozen unsafe conditions at a work zone near the crash site. Those conditions likely caused the April 2016 crash that killed backhoe operator Joseph Carter Jr. and supervisor Peter Adamovich, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled on Tuesday.

Chief among them, investigators said, was a foreman's failure to make sure dispatchers were still rerouting trains from the area under repair and the crew's failure to use a device that blocks access to those tracks.

The NTSB used a public hearing on the crash to examine safety practices at the government-owned railroad. NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said Amtrak's approach seemed to encourage workarounds by workers "to get the job done."

Investigators said the maintenance crew failed to follow safety procedures and that Amtrak management shouldn't have let work continue without detailing potential hazards.

Toxicology reports showed Carter, Adamovich and the train's engineer all had drugs in their system, but a union said that didn't play a factor.

NTSB Chairman Sumwalt stated, I want to focus on what I consider to be the underlying issues – the way that Amtrak fundamentally attempted to manage safety and compliance.
— NTSB_Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) November 14, 2017

“It’s hard to correct systemic problems, but the alternative is unacceptable,” Sumwalt said. “And correcting these problems will yield safety benefits across the board.”
— NTSB_Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) November 14, 2017

Photo credit: Michael Bryant/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP