NTSB to investigate ‘entire system’ after NYC train crash that left 24 commuters injured: ‘Not typical’
The MTA on Friday restored limited service to the Seventh Avenue subway after Thursday’s Upper West Side train crash — as the NTSB said the disaster was a final straw and they are now opening an investigation into the authority’s management.
NTSB’s chief, Jennifer Homendy, said the feds would do their own probe of the commute-snarling afternoon wreck, which injured 24, as at it was only the latest incident to plague the MTA in recent weeks.
The probe would include a look at how the authority was run.
“This is the second accident on New York City Transit’s property in 37 days. That’s not typical,” the National Transportation Safety Board head said at a late Friday press conference inside the shuttered subway stop.
“Coming here, we are going to want to take a look at the entire system – including how it is managed and supervised.”
The collision between two trains at a crossover just north of the 96th Street-Broadway station came just five weeks after a track worker was hit by a train in Manhattan.
“We understand from the NTSB that their comprehensive approach is routine in responding to serious incidents wherever they happen,” said the MTA’s chief of safety and security, Pat Warren. “For a subway system that schedules 2.7 million train trips a year, covering 345 million miles annually, this derailment was a rare occurrence that points to the safety and resilience of transit in New York.”
Agency officials, meanwhile, said service would resume on the No. 1 and the No. 3 lines, but the No. 2 would continue to run via the Lexington Avenue subway on the east side.
The service would remain limited as workers continued to try to repair and move one of the train cars mangled by the wreck, which is still blocking one of the two north-bound tracks at the station.
Homendy’s remarks came just hours after MTA officials said they were looking into if the malfunctioning brake systems aboard a vandalized and out-of-service No. 1 train suffered a further breakdown as the train approached a set of red signals, which should have forced the train to stop.
Instead, it continued forward and clipped a second northbound No. 1 train carrying passengers that was crossing from the express track back over to the local track just north of the 96th Street station — leading to a crash that injured at least two dozen people, though none seriously.
Homendy said that the NTSB’s preliminary timeline showed that the vandalized No. 1 train had been taken out of service at 79th Street-Broadway after an “unruly passenger” pulled the emergency brake cord in several cars.
New York City Transit employees attempted to reset the brakes systems to get the train back into service, but could not get the brakes in the third car to work again.
The federal safety chief said she could not independently confirm the statement that New York City Transit president Rich Davey made Friday morning that the signal system was functioning properly and the vandalized train had been ordered to stop but failed, adding that it would be part of the fed’s probe.
Davey suggested, in his remarks, that it was likely that the failure of the brake system to reset properly could mean that the signal system was unable to get the system to activate as it should have when the train passed by.
“The signal system needs to interact with the train itself,” Davey said.
“This was a train that was vandalized. People pulled the emergency brakes, we tried to reset it. The crew couldn’t reset one. We had to get rid of that train and get it out of the way. So, the frustrating part is someone decided to play a prank or do something — otherwise vandalize our train, and here we are,” he lamented.
At least 24 people suffered minor injuries in the Thursday crash when the to No. 1 trains collided — and as many as 500 passengers had to be evacuated from a train that was not involved but was stuck behind the collision.
MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber told reporters he is hoping that the stalled, vandalized No. 1 train, which was still blocking the track by midday Friday, would be cleared by the end of the day.
An MTA worker at the scene, however, told The Post the entire situation would not likely be back to normal until Monday.
“There’s been substantial progress made overnight, nine out of the 10 cars of the passenger train that was involved in the collision have been re-railed, and moved out of the area. That allows us to focus work on the remaining car, which is off the rail and because it’s a low-height area,” Lieber said at an early press conference.
Lieber and Davey said the wreck bent the first wheel carriage of the stalled train so much that MTA workers were forced to put the train car on blocks and will need to roll down a replacement car before moving it.
“There is an army of people who have been down there overnight, haven’t slept, hundreds of more folks and they are pretty far along in the process re-railing that car. Once that car is re-railed, we will be able to begin the process to make restoration service, we are expecting that to take place sometime today,” Lieber added.
The process of re-railing the subway trains back on the track is complicated because of the low ceiling heights of the tunnels north of the 96th Street station, Davey said.
“Just in terms of the complexity of why we are being so diligent, cautious as we move this equipment around …This is a tunnel and so being able to lift this and move it is incredibly difficult, so they’re literally lifting it a few inches, shimmying it over, lifting a few, shimmying it over literally, so that process takes a while,” Davey said of the ongoing effort.
“It’s an incredibly delicate process,” he noted.
The MTA has deployed “an extensive fleet” of additional buses to help commuters in the neighborhood access service, Lieber said.
The National Transportation Safety Board also arrived to help probe the collision and resulting derailment, officials said.
“The most important thing in those moments is to take a beat — we have a train that isn’t functioning the way it’s supposed to,” a transit expert said of the situation.
“It’s not going to take an hour, it’s going to take a few moments, and we have to be really careful,” they insisted.
Despite the efforts, however, the lack of subway service at 96th Street Friday morning left locals scrambling to make other plans.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” Fatima Nabe, 40, a home attendant, told The Post.
Fatima and her 14-year-old daughter, Oumou, walked to the station from West 103rd hoping to catch a 2 train to the Bronx for work and school, respectively.
“We’ve been here for 30 minutes. I live on West 103 and Broadway. We walked over here to see if we could get the 2 train but nothing. I take the train to Parkchester,” Fatima lamented.
“If I take a car, it’s going to cost a lot of money and I can’t afford it,” she added.
“I’m already late for school. It’s frustrating and I’m cold,” Oumou chimed in.
“I only have four hours of work today. I’m going to cancel and go home. She isn’t going to school today,” Fatima decided.
Another woman en route from Midtown to the Bronx had been on the street since 6:30 a.m. but still had not been able to get transit service.
“For some reason the buses weren’t running. I was waiting for the M11 to get to the train but the bus never came until 7:10 [a.m.],” she told The Post.
“This is ridiculous. I gotta go, I gotta go figure out what I’m doing,” she huffed.
Michael Kemper, NYPD’s Chief of Transit said he was “so proud” of the department’s response.
“I feel like a proud father. Our cops are amazing human beings to have such a challenging job, and all they want to do is come to work to help people and yesterday put them in position to help people literally,” he said Friday.
One cop described the chaotic situation he found at the scene.
“There was some frantic passengers aboard the train that were curious as to what was going on,” Officer Antonia Ocasio added.
