Federal transportation board says rail sensors failed ahead of East Palestine crash

A sensor on the railroad tracks running through the town of East Palestine, Ohio, failed to catch an overheated rail bearing that led to the 2023 derailment of a train carrying hazardous materials, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said at a public hearing Tuesday morning.

In the meeting, the body faulted a number of factors in the crash, including the wheel bearings that led to the derailment and the track-based monitoring systems. The NTSB also found fault with the initial emergency response and the process by which the derailed cars were vented and burned.

Officials also said they found there are “no standards” for responding to wheel bearing alerts, and suggested that implementing such a database for failures could better equip detection systems against future accidents.

“In theory, the hot bearing detector should have shown a critical alarm” once the bearing caught fire, but “instead the detector sent a non-critical alert to the back-office analyst,” said Joey Rhine, an NTSB railroad accident investigator, at the meeting.

Officials also said Norfolk Southern, the operator of the railroad, erroneously made the decision to vent and burn the chemicals involved in the derailment, a move the company said at the time was necessary to prevent an explosion. The NTSB noted a downward trend in the temperature of the tank car and other contradictory evidence that “should have led them to re-evaluate their initial conclusions.”

NTSB officials said they had determined that neither the track and infrastructure issues, signals or train control systems, nor the weight and lading volumes of the cars containing hazardous materials contributed to the accident, and that the train crew responded appropriately.

Nobody was killed or injured in the 2023 derailment. However, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at the meeting that “the absence of fatality or injury does not mean the presence of safety,” adding “the NTSB exists to ensure the presence of safety, to shine light on the vulnerabilities that compromise safety.”

The meeting comes just over a month after Norfolk Southern agreed to settle lawsuits from locals and the Justice Department for about $1 billion, resolving a proposed class action suit. The railroad did not admit to wrongdoing in the agreement.

“Norfolk Southern appreciates the NTSB’s investigation of the East Palestine derailment and recommendations for enhancing rail safety. We share their commitment to safety and have in the last 16 months implemented many enhancements and technologies including installing 187 additional hot bearing detectors, 17 acoustic bearing protectors and three digital train inspection portals, as well as providing training and deploying real-time access to train consists, locations and emergency protocols for first responders,” a spokesperson for the railroad told The Hill in a statement. “As a result of these actions and others, Norfolk Southern’s mainline accident rate declined 38% last year to industry-leading levels.”

In a statement, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said the findings “confirm many of my worst fears.”

“The derailment and subsequent chemical explosion were preventable tragedies resulting from a series of errors made by Norfolk Southern and its contractors,” Vance said.

The Ohio Republican, a contender for former President Trump’s vice presidential selection who has been sharply critical of the Biden administration’s response to the derailment, also suggested the Justice Department could have secured a larger settlement had it waited for the results, and called for the passage of railway safety reform he has sponsored with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Updated at 6:37 p.m. EDT