Crash offers safety lessons worth heeding

By Rick Stoff 

WASHINGTON—Pre-trip briefings and emergency exits are safety issues that should be improved, the National Transportation Safety Board found in its investigation of a fatal 2017 collision between a motorcoach and freight train in Biloxi, Miss.

Because the motorcoach became grounded on a railroad crossing just 37 to 42 seconds before the train arrived, these were not considered factors in the crash or subsequent injuries and fatalities. Had a bit more time elapsed, however, the exits and passengers’ lack of knowledge about them could have slowed evacuations and increased the toll.

Also cited in this crash was the difficulty of efficiently evacuating a motorcoach filled with elderly passengers. “Keep in mind this is [a group from] a senior center,” a passenger said later. “It takes two minutes for the people to get up from their seats and five minutes to get out of the bus.”

A CSX Transportation train consisting of three locomotives and 52 cars struck a 2016 Van Hool CX-45 operated by Echo Transportation of Dallas in Biloxi, Miss., on March 7, 2017. The motorcoach carried 49 passengers from Texas, ranging from 50 to 88 years old, on a casino tour along the Gulf Coast.

The probable cause of the collision, NTSB ruled at an August 7 hearing, was the failure of CSX and the city of Biloxi to remediate or adequately sign railroad grade crossings that were long known to present grounding hazards for long, low commercial vehicles. The accident occurred at a crossing that sloped 15 times greater than the recommended federal guidance.

The side impact, at 19 miles per hour, pushed the motorcoach 259 feet and killed four passengers. The driver and 37 passengers were injured. Two train crewmen were not injured.

NTSB found that the operators of the motorcoach and CSX locomotive were not “causal or contributory factors.” No motorcoach factors contributed to the collision, injuries or fatalities, the Board found, but it did call for changes in pre-trip safety briefing practices and motorcoach emergency exit windows and doors.

NTSB investigators said passengers boarded the coach in two groups and only the first group was given a safety briefing by the driver. The safety briefing that was delivered did not mention the optional rear door on this model of Van Hool.

Some passengers did flee to the rear of the cabin as they saw the train headed for the center of the motorcoach but did not attempt to open the door, investigators found in post-crash interviews. One passenger standing in front of the rear exit said he did not recognize it as a door.

While there was not sufficient time for passengers to attempt evacuations before the impact, occupants told investigators that after the collision they did not know how to open the windows or feared jumping from them due to the seven-foot drop to the ground.

NTSB investigators said they have repeatedly recommended improvements in emergency exit door and window standards to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Difficulties in emergency egress were found to be serious factors in the 2015 collision of a motorcoach and tractor-double-trailer combination in Orland, Calif.

The truck crossed the median of Interstate 5 and struck the front of the motorcoach. The truck’s fuel tank ruptured and started a fuel fire. The drivers of both vehicles and the eight motorcoach passengers were killed.

“Most of the passengers were hesitant to jump from the windows and the windows would not stay open, which caused the them to spend valuable time negotiating the movements necessary to escape,” the NTSB reported. It found that 21 passengers sustained injuries while jumping from the windows.

The Orland report also called upon NHTSA to make a second exit door mandatory on motorcoaches. “In Europe the minimum number of doors in a bus or motorcoach is two . . . . In addition, every emergency window that is hinged at the top is provided with an appropriate mechanism to hold it open.”

Interviews following the Biloxi crash illustrated the mobility difficulties of elderly passengers. Because the driver had ordered passengers to evacuate, many were standing at impact.

“Everybody was trying to get up at one time,” one passenger reported. “By the time they started pushing there was no place for me to go. A lot of them were a lot older than I am so they were not in the best of health to try to get down.”

The crash tumbled many passengers and seats. “People who were standing were falling on top of people who were sitting,” a passenger said in a newspaper report of the crash. “I am surprised there weren’t (more) dead people because [as] seniors, their bones are fragile and they have health issues and might have heart attacks.”

Another man said many of the fallen passengers, including himself, were stepped on as others attempted to reach the front door. A woman who said she was taking a blood-thinning medication suffered bleeding inside her skull.

The rear exit door handle was missing when firefighters entered the bus so the door had to be cut open. A woman on the bus later told investigators she found a handle where she landed following the collision.

A paramedic found it necessary to break the glass of one exit window before passengers could be helped to the ground on a ladder.

One woman braced herself for impact by holding the back of a seat. The outer skin of the bus was pushed against the side of that seat. “I looked and my hand was almost touching the train. It’s like it was right in the bus, almost.”

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