Metro officials said they still had no clue as to why one train - thought to be one of the oldest on the 33-year-old network - plowed into the back of a stationary one on an above-ground section of the system's Red Line. -- PHOTO:
WASHINGTON - SAFETY watchdogs warned Washington's metro operators three years ago about weaknesses in aging subway cars like the one involved in a collision that killed nine people on Monday, investigators said.
PRELIMINARY investigations found that the striking train was in 'automatic mode' and that the emergency brake had been depressed, indicating McMillan may have tried to stop the train before the fatal collision, Ms Hersman said.
'We have not yet made any determination about the cause of this accident,' she said.
National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said Tuesday the US capital's subway system was told in 2006 that the carriage in its 1000-series trains was likely to crumple in the event of an impact.
The possible effects of that danger were seen in the mangled wreckage of two commuter trains, which crashed during the city's busy Monday evening rush hour killing nine and injuring some 80 others.
'We made recommendations in 2006 about the crash-worthiness of the 1000-series cars,' Ms Hersman told reporters at the scene of the crash. 'We recommended... to either retrofit those cars or phase them out of the fleet.'
She said that did not happen.
The 2006 report said the 1000-series was 'vulnerable to catastrophic telescoping damage and complete loss of occupant survival space.' The NTSB scoured the wreckage Tuesday hunting for clues to the worst subway accident in the history of the system, which carries 800,000 people daily through Washington and nearby suburbs in Maryland and Virginia.
Metro officials said they still had no clue as to why one train - thought to be one of the oldest on the 33-year-old network - plowed into the back of a stationary one on an above-ground section of the system's Red Line.
Ms Hersman noted that the lead car of the moving train was severely compressed by the impact, with '50 feet of that 75 feet ... of survivable space lost or compromised, and so that's very significant.'
The federal agency that has taken over the crash investigation also said the moving train's operator, 42-year-old Jeanice McMillan, had been driving the system's trains for just three months, after about six weeks of training.
McMillan, whose train slammed into the other one with such force that it thrust the carriage of one train on top of the other, died in the crash. -- AFP
