Inaction on Sleep Apnea Draws Ire of NTSB in Train Crashes
- NTSB concludes probe into accidents in Brooklyn, Hoboken
- Trump administration has withdrawn plans to screen engineers
Train personel survey the NJ Transit train that crashed in to the platform at the Hoboken Terminal Sept. 29, 2016.
Photographer: Pancho Bernasconi/Getty Images North AmericaThis article is for subscribers only.
Just months after U.S. rail and highway regulators said they were withdrawing plans to screen truckers and railroad engineers for a dangerous sleep disorder, accident investigators blamed it for two New York-area transit crashes.
“It’s unacceptable to me,” Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday at a meeting on the accidents that occurred in 2016 and last year. Sumwalt said he was “extremely disturbed” by the government’s lack of action on sleep apnea.