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The Washington Post reviewed “every possible regulatory change” that was made under the Trump administration and found that none of them contributed to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.“We decided to examine every possible regulatory change made under Trump that could be related to the accident and assess whether it could have made an impact,” read a review published Monday by Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post.“From our analysis, none of the regulatory changes made during the Trump administration at this point can be cited as contributing to the accident,” Kessler added.The review of “every possible regulatory change” made...

Did Norfolk Southern neglect safety protocols in pursuit of DEI and ESG initiatives?On February 3rd, dozens of Norfolk Southern train cars derailed while traveling through East Palestine, Ohio, with 11 of those cars carrying ultra hazardous chemical agents. Some three days later, those chemicals were burned off into the air, after officials expressed concerns that the materials could explode and ignite an even greater catastrophe. Could all of this have been avoided? On Thursday, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) determined in a preliminary report that an overheated wheel bearing on a Norfolk Southern train car could be responsible for...

The operators of the Norfolk Southern train involved in a toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this month received a "critical audible alarm message instructing the crew to slow and stop the train to inspect a hot axle," according to a newly released National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report Thursday.

A member of Biden’s own administration called U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s claims about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — in which he blamed former President Donald Trump — “misinformation.” On Tuesday, while addressing the rail disaster, Buttigieg falsely claimed he is “constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation” and cited a “braking rule” that was withdrawn in 2018, under the Trump administration. Buttigieg was referring to the Department of Transportation (DOT) withdrawing a proposed rule requiring trains carrying certain dangerous chemicals to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. After that, social media users circulated...

CLAIM: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is blaming former President Donald Trump for the train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, claiming, “we’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation,” and citing a “braking rule” that was withdrawn under the Trump administration. VERDICT: False. While it is true that in 2018 the Department of Transportation (DOT) withdrew a proposed rule requiring trains carrying certain dangerous chemicals to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes, this rule would not have applied to the train that derailed in East Palestine on February 3. In addressing the train derailment on Tuesday, Buttigieg...

Line painting and other finishing touches continued Tuesday at the new Fern Hollow Bridge in the city’s East End, with a dedication ceremony planned Wednesday and completion of bridge reconstruction work anticipated Thursday, officials said. A date for reopening the bridge to traffic has not been set, according to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Steve Cowan, but it was anticipated it would be within a week. The busy, 500-foot Forbes Avenue bridge, which connected Squirrel Hill to Point Breeze and Park Place, collapsed onto a popular hiking trail about 100 feet below the road in Frick Park in January. Ten...

The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending new speed limiter technology. According to a CNN Business report, an electric car equipped with this intelligence speed assistance program knows the speed limit wherever the particular car is traveling. A video demonstrating this speed-limiting program on the CNN Business website showed New York City Deputy Mayor of Operations Meera Joshi is driving a vehicle equipped with the program. While demonstrating the speed limiter program Joshi, formerly FMCSA’s acting administrator, said, “I’m pressing the pedal, but you see actually the number is going down.”

DETROIT (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending that all new vehicles in the U.S. be equipped with blood alcohol monitoring systems that can stop an intoxicated person from driving. The recommendation, if enacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, could reduce the number of alcohol-related crashes, one of the biggest causes of highway deaths in the U.S. The new push to make roads safer was included in a report released Tuesday about a horrific crash last year in which a drunk driver collided head-on with another vehicle near Fresno, California, killing both adult drivers and seven...

WASHINGTON - The National Transportation Safety Board revealed the likely cause of the deadly helicopter crash that took the lives of nine Southern California residents, including NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter on Tuesday. During Tuesday’s board meeting, the NTSB was critical of veteran pilot Ara Zobayan's actions in the final moments of the flight from when the aircraft entered the Van Nuys airspace to when it collided with the hilly terrain in Calabasas. "There were opportunities along the way to have reversed the course and prevented this crash by simply landing," NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said. In...

The National Transportation Safety Board says the U.S. is woefully unprepared to deal with EV fires, which require different strategies than gasoline vehicle fires. 31 percent of fire departments don't train for EV fires, and half say they don't have special protocols in place to deal with EVs after a crash, the agency's report found. Note the caveats, though. There are more than 29,000 fire departments in the U.S. This survey only asked for information from 32 of them. If you have been reading Car and Driver for a while, there's a decent chance you remember the news when a...

The pilot of the helicopter that crashed in thick fog, killing Kobe Bryant and seven other passengers, reported he was climbing when he actually was descending, federal investigators said in documents released Wednesday. Ara Zobayan radioed to air traffic controllers that he was climbing to 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) to get above clouds on Jan. 26 when, in fact, the helicopter was plunging toward a hillside where it crashed northwest of Los Angeles. The report by the National Transportation Safety Board said Zobayan may have “misperceived” the angles at which he was descending and banking, which can happen when a...

The pilot of the helicopter that crashed and killed Kobe Bryant and eight others was almost out of blinding clouds when he suddenly plunged and crashed into a Southern California hillside, investigators and aviation experts indicated. Ara Zobayan had told air traffic control he was climbing to 4,000 feet and he rose to 2,300 feet, according to an investigative update released Friday from the National Transportation Safety Board. The helicopter was just 100 feet from the cloud tops and conceivably would have broken through into clear air in a matter of seconds. Air traffic controllers had advised Zobayan that the...

Speed of over a hundred miles per hour on a curve caused a 2018 crash and fire in Florida that killed the teenage driver of a Tesla Model S and a passenger, federal investigators have concluded. The National Transportation Safety Board, in a report released Thursday, said the battery-powered car erupted in flames after colliding with a wall, trapping two 18-year-olds. Firefighters were unable to rescue the two despite putting out the blaze less than a minute after they arrived. Injuries from the fire that started in the car’s lithium-ion battery contributed to the two deaths, although the passenger had...

The plane [Pilatus PC-12]had embarked shortly before noon from Chamberlain, South Dakota, and crashed about a mile southwest of there, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The cause of the crash has yet to be determined. Maule Rossow said at the time of the crash weather conditions included "strong winds and snow." FAA investigators are traveling to the site, and the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified. The NTSB will manage the investigation.

The last time the National Transportation Safety Board came down hard on engineering and construction was in 2007. That year, the board delivered reports on the collapse of the I-35 Highway Bridge in Minneapolis that killed 13 people, and on a ceiling collapse in a Boston Central Artery tunnel that killed one motorist. Both involved completed structures. With its final investigation findings, the board also made recommendations for new standards and procedures and quality control. NTSB's report on last year’s Miami bridge collapse at Florida International University in mid-construction, which killed five motorists and one construction worker, has similar recommendations....

A bridge-building disaster should be incomprehensible in today’s technical world. Humans have been building bridges for centuries. The science should be well sorted out by now — and for the most part, it is. But the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the March 2018 collapse of the FIU pedestrian bridge highlighted basic design flaws and a complete lack of oversight by every single party that had responsibility to either identify the design errors or stop work once it was clear that there was a massive internal failure. We all know “what happened” here. But the “why” is more elusive....

Mike Exner, a prominent member of the Independent Group, has studied the radar data extensively. He believes that during the turn, the airplane climbed up to 40,000 feet, which was close to its limit. Exner believes the reason for the climb was to accelerate the effects of depressurizing the airplane, causing the rapid incapacitation and death of everyone in the cabin. The cockpit, by contrast, was equipped with four pressurized-oxygen masks linked to hours of supply. Zaharie was often lonely and sad. His wife had moved out, and was living in the family’s second house. By his own admission to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tesla Inc's Autopilot feature was engaged during a fatal March 1 crash of a 2018 Model 3 in Delray Beach, Florida, in at least the third fatal U.S. crash reported involving the driver-assistance system, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday. The NTSB's preliminary report said the driver engaged Autopilot about 10 seconds before crashing into a semitrailer, and the system did not detect the driver's hands on the wheel for fewer than eight seconds before the crash. The vehicle was traveling at about 68 miles (109 km) per hour (mph) on a highway with a...

A limousine that crashed and killed 20 people in upstate New York on Saturday was reportedly in “terrible condition,” and was a replacement vehicle after the group’s rented bus broke down before reaching its destination. All 18 inside the vehicle were killed, along with two bystanders after the 2001 Ford Excursion limousine – believed to be headed to a birthday party -- ran through an intersection and struck a parked 2015 Toyota Highlander outside the Apple Barrel Country Store. -snip- The limousine was traveling southwest on state Route 30 in Schoharie, about 170 miles north of New York City and...

SCHOHARIE - Twenty people died Saturday's crash of a limousine in Schoharie County, State Police confirmed late Sunday morning. The crash is the deadliest in the Capital Region since the Oct. 2, 2005 sinking of the Ethan Allen tour boat on Lake George killed 20 people.