(NY Newsday.com posted the following article by Joshua Robin on April 16.)
NEW YORK — A communication breakdown and poor training led to the death of an AirTrain driver at Kennedy Airport in September, the Port Authority has concluded.
With added oversight from a new safety board, testing on the AirTrain system could resume as early as today, and, after months of costly delays, passengers could board trains by the end of the year, the agency said yesterday.
“Frankly, we believe that the operator didn’t have proper training,” Anthony Cracchiolo, the Port Authority’s director of priority capital programs, said in a conference call with reporters yesterday morning. “We have to take this testing forward and make sure it’s done very carefully, and make sure it’s done very safely.”
Kelvin DeBourgh Jr., 23, an employee of Bombardier, a lead contractor on the $1.9-billion AirTrain project, was driving the train Sept. 27 with no passengers aboard on the three-mile leg linking airport terminals with the Howard Beach subway station.
Investigators determined the train was moving about 55 mph along a curve designed to handle speeds no faster than 25. Technicians had disabled a part called the governor, which limits speed, as part of the testing process – a mistake given DeBourgh’s lack of training, Cracchiolo said.
They had also disabled a computerized tracking system that shows where the car is on the 8.1-mile route.
While driving, DeBourgh apparently missed the spot where he was to stop by about 1,600 feet, instead continuing along a perilous curve at dangerous speeds. A colleague on radio directing DeBourgh also apparently did not know where he was. At about 12:30 p.m., the train derailed, shifting forward heavy concrete blocks used to simulate added weight, crushing DeBourgh to death.
“He was never to go as far as he did into that curve,” Cracchiolo said. “That was a misunderstanding.”
Most runs on the system will be automated, with speed on curves limited to 15 mph, authority officials said.
The National Transportation Safety Board has not yet issued its own report, but officials there are said to have reached the same conclusion.
Paul Weitz, an attorney for DeBourgh’s family, said the report proved “the people who put him in this position should never have put him behind the wheel.”
The family, of Jamaica, intends to sue the Port Authority and Bombardier, Weitz said. An initial legal document indicated the family will ask for $50 million.
Sam Ostrow, a Bombardier spokesman, said the company “accepts the report.”
“Bombardier and the Port Authority have worked very closely since the accident to address the issues. Many of them have already been implemented,” he said.
The safety supervisor working that day is still employed by Bombardier, in Turkey, Ostrow said. He declined to identify the supervisor.
The authority said despite Bombardier’s past problems, it trusted the company to run the system with continued oversight.