Monorail investigation

I’ve chosen to stay on the side with respect to the unfortunate monorail accident that happened this past weekend at Disney World.  This is especially important to me as an engineer, since most things in the world of accidents are not always what they seem at first glance. 

That’s why it takes folks at the NTSB so long to issue final reports on accidents, since they do their best to be very thorough and systematic about it.  The same can be said for most accident investigations.  Other notable ones that garner a lot of media headlines are ones that NASA has done in the past.  For instance, the NASA accident team on the 1986 Challenger accident published no fewer than 5 volumes an over 600 pages of findings and facts.  The same can be said for the more recent Columbia accident where NASA published over 300 pages in the core report on the accident.  Who knew that a smallish briefcase size chunk of otherwise unremarkable foam could do such ballistic damage at high speed?

So I was heartened when Disney publically noted that they were happy too cooperate with the NTSB and other federal, state and local officials on the accident investigation.  That means they are both proud of their operating history and ride safety but also knowledgeable enough to let someone else lead the investigation to help them figure out what happened and what were all the contributing factors.

The reason I hate speculation is it already appears from AP reports just out today that preliminary data appears to confirm that the switch is in working order.  It also appears that Austin Wuennenberg, the pilot of monorail purple who was killed also attempted to reverse his train and leave the station to avoid impact.  No system that has humans in it can completely take human error out of the loop, no matter how good the safe guards are. 

So the real question seems to be coming down to procedures and operations modes.  Why was monorail purple so close to begin with?  Why didn’t the pink operator realize they were not on the spur?  How many hours does Disney have operators work and is it reasonable?  Likewise how often to they provide and mandate training?  These are all questions I’m sure the investigation folks will look at and attempt to address.

Our prayers also go out to the Wuennenberg family.  I hope that Disney and the investigations teams are able to come to some solid conclusions that make sure this system continues to function flawlessly as it has for the last 30+ years. 

Until then, we need to deal with the facts as they present themselves and not pure speculation on what may or may not have happened.  You never know until everything is on the table.