WASHINGTON – The director of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that freight trains should be required to have inward and outward audio and image recorders following the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told lawmakers in her testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that the Norfolk Southern train involved in the February 3 derailment had only one inward-facing camera and that the data was overwritten.
«Since the locomotive was put back into service immediately after the accident, the data was overwritten,» he said in his comments. «That means the recorder only provided about 15 minutes of data before the derailment and five minutes after.»
Major commuter train derailments near Los Angeles and Philadelphia in the past 20 years led to a law requiring Amtrak and commuter rail to have «crash and fire-hardened internal and external image recorders for locomotives having a 12″ minimum. continuous recording capacity of an hour,» Homendy said.
«Now is the time to expand that requirement to audio and include Class I freight railroads in that mandate,» he added.
Homendy noted that, like aircraft cockpit voice recorders, train locomotive cockpit video and audio recorders «are essential to help investigators determine the cause of an accident» and develop recommendations to prevent future derailments.
The NTSB chairman also said his agency is committed to conducting a thorough independent investigation into the East Palestine derailment, which led to a spill of toxic chemicals.
The NTSB report summarizing its preliminary investigation into the accident says the train derailment could be attributed to a overheated wheel bearing that was 253 degrees hotter than air temperature.
The agency said that officials involved in the investigation will continue to focus on the wheelset and bearings, the tank car design, the derailment damage, and a review of the response to the accident, including venting and burning the chemicals, as well as Norfolk Southern’s inspection practices. .
fiona glison contributed.