Sensors installed on railroad tracks that run through the town of East Palestine, Ohio, failed to detect overheated rail bearings that led to the derailment of a train carrying hazardous materials in 2023, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said during a hearing Tuesday morning.
At the meeting, the NTSB cited deficiencies in many of the factors that led to the accident, including the wheel bearings that caused the derailment and the monitoring systems installed on the track, as well as deficiencies in the initial emergency response and the exhaust and combustion process of the derailed cars.
Officials also said there was “no standard” for responding to wheel-bearing warnings, and suggested that introducing such a database of faults could better equip detection systems for future accidents.
“In theory, if the bearing burned, the hot bearing detector should have issued a major alert,” but “instead the detector sent a non-major alert to back-office analysts,” Joey Rhyne, an NTSB rail accident investigator, said at the conference.
Authorities also said the railroad’s operator, Norfolk Southern, made a flawed decision to release and burn the chemicals implicated in the derailment. The company said at the time that the action was necessary to prevent an explosion. The NTSB said it “should have reconsidered its original conclusion,” citing a downward trend in the tank car’s temperature and other conflicting evidence.
NTSB officials said they determined that neither track or infrastructure problems, the signaling or train control systems, nor the weight or load of the cars carrying hazardous materials caused the accident and that the train crew responded appropriately.
No one was killed or injured in the 2023 derailment. But NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at the meeting that “the absence of deaths and injuries does not mean safety is assured,” adding that the NTSB “is here to ensure safety and to uncover vulnerabilities that undermine safety.”
The meeting came just a month after Norfolk Southern settled a class-action lawsuit brought by local residents and the Department of Justice for about $1 billion. The railroad did not admit to wrongdoing in the agreement.
The Hill has reached out to Norfolk Southern for comment.
