The railway and its contractors disregarded the dropping temperature of the tank car they were concerned about, which should have signaled that the danger was waning, NTSB investigator Paul L. Stancil said.
They also failed to give the local fire chief and other officials a key report from the chemicals’ manufacturer, who had inspected the train cars and determined that the probability of the worst-case scenario was low, investigators found.
In addition, investigators found that firefighters and emergency responders stayed at the fiery derailment scene longer than they should have immediately after the crash because Norfolk Southern didn’t share information about what hazardous materials were on the train until an hour after firefighters arrived.
“This resulted in greater exposure of emergency responders and to the public to post-derailment hazards,” said NTSB investigator Troy Lloyd.
The board’s meeting Tuesday, held in East Palestine, offers a window into what federal investigators have found in their 17-month investigation, which examined aspects of the crash, the emergency response and the actions of the train operator, Norfolk Southern.
After hearing from investigators, board members will vote Tuesday on their final findings and recommendations, including the probable cause of the derailment; the NTSB’s full final report will follow several weeks later. The board members met with residents Monday and will hold another meeting Tuesday evening.
Investigators also laid out several other factors that contributed to the derailment and its effects, including the use of a type of tank car that was easily punctured to carry flammable butyl acrylate, which started the initial fire.
That type of car is being phased out for such use and won’t be eligible to carry butyl acrylate after May 2029, investigators said. Its failure likely led to the fire, and the fire caused the concern about whether the cars carrying vinyl chloride were heating up.
“The events that eventually led to the vent and burn could’ve been avoided had there been no DOT-111 tank cars carrying combustible and flammable liquids on this train,” Stancil said.
The Feb. 3, 2023 derailment upended East Palestine — a small town near the Pennsylvania border — and surrounding communities, drawing national attention to freight railroad safety and leaving residents with lingering fears of contamination. The decision to carry out the “vent and burn” of the five train cars sent a towering plume of toxic fumes into the sky.
A year and a half later, cleanup by the Environmental Protection Agency is ongoing — one of many ways the derailment’s effects are still being felt. The disaster has prompted lawsuits, industry changes and legislative and regulatory efforts. On Monday, the Department of Transportation announced a new requirement that railroads provide local emergency agencies with information about all hazardous materials being carried through their areas.
The NTSB’s recommendations will likely spur more changes in how railroads and other carriers can prevent and respond to chemical releases.
Former NTSB chair Robert L. Sumwalt said he expected the NTSB to make an array of recommendations aiming “to improve rail safety when it comes to transporting hazardous materials.”
“This derailment will be another one of these watershed accidents that really will change the way that the industry does business,” said Sumwalt, the executive director of the Boeing Center for Aviation & Aerospace Safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Much of the NTSB’s investigation has centered around the decision by Norfolk Southern contractors and officials to release vinyl chloride, an odorless carcinogenic chemical, from the five train cars. On Tuesday, investigators provided new details about the decision, saying the railway and its contractors exhibited “confirmation bias” in assessing the likelihood of whether the vinyl chloride was undergoing polymerization and could cause the train car to explode.
At a Senate hearing in March, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy testified that the burn-off could have been avoided and that the decision had been based on flawed information. Norfolk Southern has maintained that the vent-and-burn of the vinyl chloride protected the community from a possible explosion of the train cars.
Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, Norfolk Southern announced it would lead an industry working group to examine the vent-and-burn practice. It also released a report summarizing the company’s steps to increase safety, including new equipment, a system for communicating what trains are carrying to first responders and a reported reduction in accidents and employee injuries.
The company has also pledged millions for community and environmental initiatives in East Palestine. It will pay millions in lawsuit settlements with the federal government and residents.
“There is no finish line when it comes to improving safety,” Norfolk Southern chief safety officer John Fleps said in a statement Monday. “We will continue looking for improvements in all that we do.”
The train derailed on the night of Feb. 3, 2023, after a bearing on one of the train’s wheels overheated. Though a device on the track known as a hot bearing detector identified the overheating, the NTSB found in its preliminary report, the crew couldn’t stop the train in time. Thirty-eight cars went off the tracks, including 11 that held hazardous materials, and a fire ignited.
The temperature of one tank car containing vinyl chloride continued rising after the crash, making workers fear it could burst. On Feb. 6, with residents evacuated, officials gave the go-ahead to release the vinyl chloride from the five tank cars and burn it, saying they wanted to avert a potential “major explosion.”
In the days that followed, residents of East Palestine questioned how badly that decision may have contaminated the area. Making national news, the derailment became a political flashpoint, with residents — some of whom reported health symptoms — demanding answers and commentators rushing to politicize the situation.
In March, Homendy told the Senate that instead of doing the controlled burn, the tank cars could have been allowed to cool down. She said the Norfolk Southern-employed contractors lacked the scientific knowledge to assess the situation and gave incomplete information to the officials who had only 13 minutes to decide whether to give the go-ahead, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R). The governor told The Post that officials were not aware they had any other options to prevent a possible explosion.
Since, the EPA and state regulators have said testing doesn’t show hazardous chemical levels in the drinking water, air and soil. But the potential impact has remained a matter of debate as watchdogs and residents have pushed for more studies of the contamination and people’s exposure to it.
Last week, researchers found that the toxic chemicals released in the burn spread over 16 states, reaching as far as South Carolina and New England. One of the study’s authors said the levels of contamination were not toxic but “pretty unusual at a lot of places.”
In addition to the hazardous-materials reporting requirement announced by the Biden administration Monday, the disaster led to a new federal rule requiring at least two people to operate long freight trains. It has also prompted the railroad industry to institute some new safety measures, including expanding use of an app through which railroads can report what hazardous materials they’re carrying.
Even so, the industry has used its lobbying muscle to block efforts in Congress to pass stricter safety standards, as The Post has reported.
Last month, Norfolk Southern agreed to a $310 million settlement with the federal government, requiring the railroad to pay for the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup efforts and penalties for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act.
That agreement includes facilitating the industry “vent and burn workgroup,” Norfolk Southern said Friday. The railroad also reached a $600 million settlement in April to resolve class-action claims made by residents and businesses.
Norfolk Southern’s other steps include paying for the area’s water monitoring for the next 10 years, implementing a “waterways remediation plan” and providing a $25 million medical and mental health services program.
This story will be updated.
Staff writers Ian Duncan, Liz Goodwin, Maxine Joselow and Kasha Patel contributed to this report.
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