Driver killed in monorail crash....

[figment52]

I hope no one minds but I copied the tribute in my sig from another site. feel free to copy

 

[dee47]

I hope no one minds but I copied the tribute in my sig from another site. feel free to copy

Wow. That's gorgeous. It brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for sharing! I hope we can put this in our sig!

 

[ParrotBill]

Why wouldn't he be allowed back at work? Have they determined he caused the crash?? I think it has been determined clearly that he was given the go to back up and there is no way he could see the other train. That sounds like an accident not his fault. I know he is suspended for now but they made it clear this was not discplenary. I would bet that if he doesn't drive a monorail again it is simply because he won't want to. He did get into an accident an a friend of his died, who would blame him. People get into car accidents all the time but we don't ban them from the road unless it was due to DUI or something like that. This CM was really just doing his job (it sounds like). That would be ashame if he is taken off a job he loves just for political reasons. Now Maintenance and Command they had the clearest breakdown so I can see some permanent suspensions. Of course all this is based on what we are hearing and not any actual report.

He is suspended during the investigation pending a determination of faults.

We have heard other monorail drivers say that the driver should have know he was on the wrong track 2 ways:
- seeing the main line on the left instead of the spur on the right (facing the direction the train is traveling)
- using rear view mirrors to see where the train is going, should know the difference between the express beam and EPCOT beam

If he is not found to have at fault, I think that just being involved in such a thing, is reason enough to transfer to a different job.

 

[mollygirl13]

I hope that everybody can find peace in all of this.

Oh, how I agree with this statement!

 

[Feralpeg]

He is suspended during the investigation pending a determination of faults.

We have heard other monorail drivers say that the driver should have know he was on the wrong track 2 ways:
- seeing the main line on the left instead of the spur on the right (facing the direction the train is traveling)
- using rear view mirrors to see where the train is going, should know the difference between the express beam and EPCOT beam

If he is not found to have at fault, I think that just being involved in such a thing, is reason enough to transfer to a different job.

Actually, he has not been suspended. He is on paid administrative leave while the investigation takes place.

 

[Kurby]

He is suspended during the investigation pending a determination of faults.

We have heard other monorail drivers say that the driver should have know he was on the wrong track 2 ways:
- seeing the main line on the left instead of the spur on the right (facing the direction the train is traveling)
- using rear view mirrors to see where the train is going, should know the difference between the express beam and EPCOT beam

If he is not found to have at fault, I think that just being involved in such a thing, is reason enough to transfer to a different job.

even if he's found not to be at fault i wouldn't think he'd even want to go back to work.

i drive a school bus and a couple of years ago a women was j-walking across the street and was hit by one of our drivers. he was driving through the intersection and she tried to beat him across but didn't make it. she died. it was very sad that to catch a public transit bus on the other side she made a bad decision and paid the price.

he still has not returned to work and no one expects that he will ever want to drive again.

he was found not guilty in the investigation but that doesn't matter.

drivers of subway trains often don't return to work when suicide jumpers jump in front of their trains - clearly they are not at fault but it's something they have to live with.

 

[chell]

Yes, and although this is just a guess on my part, it also seems to indicate that he was trying to get his passengers out of the way. If he had only been thinking of himself, he could have tried to jump out of the cab. Instead, he stayed at his post and tried to move the train.

You didn't have to go and post that. (Please understand I'm not saying anything against you posting it but I'm saying that is what really just hit me deep down and makes me so very, very sad.) I've been upset about this since the beginning, but the tears have stayed away until you said that. It gets more difficult hearing how wonderful of a man he was. I hope his mother gets to hear all these wonderful things about her son. Wow. He protected his guests. How amazing! Think how many people have had their lives blessed because of the amazing job he did and because he actually cared...

 

[SueM in MN]

It's Disney standard to stay this quiet. Usually accidents like this only come out of speculation entirely when cast members at the time are no longer with the company, and they have nothing to loose. Of course this could be years later, when most people are not interested in it. Same reason why you only hear when a ride goes down "we're down due to technical difficulties." It could be something serious like some one falling out and getting hurt, it could be as minor as something falling into the tracks and causing the sensors to go off, or a bad thunderstorm knocking a sensor out.

There are actually reports of accidents bad enough to require 24 hours in the hospital (here's a link to a story in the Orlando Sentinel).
I have heard reports on the news, but most of the accidents are not serious, so they may be reported for a short time on CNN or other national news outlets. Once more 'interesing' news comes out, that story will no longer be reported. If the story was only 'news' for a few hours, any follow-up may not be reported on at all.

For the skyway ride, there was a death of a guest at DL and a death of the CM (maintance guy) at WDW.

One correction, the guest at DL did not die. according to Snopes.com
He fell 20 feet from the skyway and landed on a tree, where paramedics helped him down. He was taken to a nearby medical facility and released with minor injuries. He later sued Disney because he said he fell out of the ride car. His lawsuit was dismissed.

Austin's monorail ride video nearly choked me up. I didn't want to cry in front of Kari because she didn't seem quite as emotional. You know his mom will forever be thankful for that video. I feel so sorry for the little boy. I know the mom said she wasn't going to tell him, but he probably thinks the world of autsin and will be upset when he's old enough to find out what happened.

That is an especially sad thought.

2) Accidents of this type seldom occur because 1 thing goes wrong or 1 person made a mistake. It almost always requires a series of things going wrong that were not anticipated to result in such a tragedy waiting to happen, and eventually occuring. Finding out the series of events in this case and searching for other potential combinations of errors, plus finding ways to "break the chain" should be (almost certainly is) the focus of the investigations at this point.

Everyone involved in this is a human being who is not perfect. They will all have to live with whatever they did or did not do that led to this accident.
In most accidents, it is not one failure, it's a series of failures or combination of things that resulted in the death of one person.
I hope what they look at is the process and all the places that process may have gone wrong.
In situations like this, people are often looking for one person who can be 'blamed' and 'punished'. That may 'feel' good, but unless the process is changed, the same thing may happen again. A good process takes into account that no one is perfect and puts pieces into place to correct for that.

3) OSHA and the NTSB are involved, so we will eventually have a report on the cause. We will have to wait for it, and Disney probably won't offer anything until then, but we will have a report. After the full investigation is complete, and not before. Disney can't hide the answer, whether they want to or not.

4) As a person, but especially as a mother, I have to say how sorry I am for Austin's mother and loved ones. I can't imagine how she will get through this, but my prayers go out to her and all who knew him. He seems to have been a very special man.

I agree that Austin clearly did not see the entire reverse because he would not have just sat there until it was too late to hit reverse. He also, I believe would have communitcated that PINK was on the wrong track. Obviously even the CM's on the station didn't see it and it appears to have happened in front of their eyes. They all had a kill pack. And the Pink Monorail driver was in the front of the trains backing around a huge curve. We can only speculate as to why he didn't realize that he was on the wrong beam, but most likely it is because the pilots rely on Central to give them the go when it is safe and the switch has occured. Evidently this is not the case and there was no one on the Station in central command that saw it. I doubt this would have happened earlier in the night. I think in the end it will be a combination of breakdowns and even the late hours having to do with a little more relaxed system plus the fact that they have already said they changed to a more stressful situation as far a running the trains faster to get everyone out for the 4th.

One thing I thought about was that since it was late at night, there was also the additional complication of darkness. The purple monorail was in the station where it was brightly lit. That would make it harder to see things outside in the darkness.
And, no one would be expecting to see a monorail backing into the station.
The same would be true of the pilot of the pink monorail. If it was daytime, he may have seen that he was on the wrong track when it was harder to see at night.

SSB[/QUOTE]

CNN reported last night that 3 employees have been placed on paid leave:

Driver of Monorail Pink
A maintenance shop person
A manager

"part of an investigative process, not a disciplinary action."

I think this lines up with things we have been hearing from prior monorail castmembers.

Given there was no technical failure, as found by the NTSB and OSHA, we can expect to see some people lose their jobs.

I don't think we will know what the NTSB and OSHA actually find until they make their report.
There is a fairly new philosophy called "Just Culture" in use in healthcare and a lot of other industries. Just culture recognizes that most mistakes are due to human error, not due to maliciousness or reckless behavior. The cause of the error needs to be found and corrected in order to correct what the error. From the little I have read about the process of 'putting the monorail to bed', it looks like there were a lot of potential error points.

Actually, he has not been suspended. He is on paid administrative leave while the investigation takes place.

I would imagine there would be no way that the people involved would be in any mental state to work. Even if they had not been friends with or known Austin well, the monorail CMs are a small enough group that they probably knew or had met him. Even if he was a stranger, I imagine it would be really hard to go back to work knowing what had happened that night.

 

[Feralpeg]

I would imagine there would be no way that the people involved would be in any mental state to work. Even if they had not been friends with or known Austin well, the monorail CMs are a small enough group that they probably knew or had met him. Even if he was a stranger, I imagine it would be really hard to go back to work knowing what had happened that night.

I agree. The only reason I posted is because I keep seeing people state that the three CMs have been suspended. That makes it sound like they are in trouble. At this point, they are simply on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation. There is a difference.

 

[SueM in MN]

I agree. The only reason I posted is because I keep seeing people state that the three CMs have been suspended. That makes it sound like they are in trouble. At this point, they are simply on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation. There is a difference.

I agree with you. There is a big difference.

 

[JLTraveling]

This has me so shaken up. I heard about it on CNN while waiting for a plane to Orlando at the Philadelphia airport. Thanks to serious jet lag though (I was in transit from Anchorage), it took me until last night to actually get here and find out the details.

Here's the thing: my father and I live in the Disney area, and were on our way back from a month in Alaska. We were originally supposed to fly back on July 5. Thanks to an airline screwup, however, we ended up on two overnight flights -- one to Denver on July 3/4, and one to Orlando via Philly July 4/5, leaving us with 18 hours in Denver.

We tried our best to get onto an earlier flight to Orlando on the 4th, thinking we could still salvage the 4th by going to the MK fireworks. But we couldn't do it, because our flight was scheduled for after midnight, making it the next business day. We would have had to pay huge change fees, so we opted to hang out in Denver instead.

Had we gotten onto an earlier flight, we 100% would have gone to the MK. And as is our routine, late at night, after the MK closed, we would have ridden the circuit to Epcot and back (we love the view of Epcot at night after closing). With the MK closing at 1 am, and us preferring to be among the last guests out of the park, it would absolutely have put us on the monorail at the TTC at 2 am.

Now, Dad normally uses an ECV at the parks due to severe arthritis in his spine. But he is capable of walking with a cane. If we're only going to be in the parks for an hour or two, he sometimes uses the cane. His ECV battery was completely dead after the trip. So he would have been using the cane. Since he usually has the scooter and can't ride up front, on the rare occasions that he can, we always ask for the front.

Therefore, I'd say there's a better than average chance that we would have been in the front on Austin's monorail that night had we not been involuntarily held in Denver that day. And that scares the heck out of me.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Austin's family and friends, the driver of Monorail Pink, and everyone involved in this horrible tragedy.

 

[TinkAsh2001]

I am going to snag the ribbon to put in my siggy. What a sad tragedy!

 

[Scraper]

I am confused. The report says the trains hit outside of the station but from the video they look like they are in the station. Does anyone know what this is about?

 

[Shan-man]

I'm reasonably certain that the impact occurred inside the TTC. The pictures from outside the station must have been from later, after they cleared the accident scene and moved the trains to evacuate the other (uninjured) pilot.

 

[chell]

I am confused. The report says the trains hit outside of the station but from the video they look like they are in the station. Does anyone know what this is about?

At some point they said the trains had to be pulled into the station so they could get those inside off.

 

[TinkerLily]

I wish for speculations to end and hearts to heal.

 

[dee47]

I wish for speculations to end and hearts to heal.

I second that!!

 

[PrincessMickey]

We just returned from our trip this weekend. The second half of our trip was with family in New England where we were unable to follow the news very much. This is the first chance I've had to read up on the accident and learn who the driver was. It was difficult to pull up the picture and learn it was the same driver that we had on the 27th. He seemed like such a great guy and loved his job. To me ha was very safety minded. He would tell my boys what number section he would stop on and have them help him find it. He was showing us how he could see the other monorails ahead of us by their lights. He was telling us that once you get the hang of driving it they are easy and fun to drive. We all really enjoyed our experiance and enjoyed meeting such a great guy. I just wanted to share with you all that he truely was a great guy who loved his job and took his job very serious. My heart goes out to his family, I know he will truely be missed.

 

[Cmbar]

We just returned from our trip this weekend. The second half of our trip was with family in New England where we were unable to follow the news very much. This is the first chance I've had to read up on the accident and learn who the driver was. It was difficult to pull up the picture and learn it was the same driver that we had on the 27th. He seemed like such a great guy and loved his job. To me ha was very safety minded. He would tell my boys what number section he would stop on and have them help him find it. He was showing us how he could see the other monorails ahead of us by their lights. He was telling us that once you get the hang of driving it they are easy and fun to drive. We all really enjoyed our experiance and enjoyed meeting such a great guy. I just wanted to share with you all that he truely was a great guy who loved his job and took his job very serious. My heart goes out to his family, I know he will truely be missed.

Princess Mickey, Thanks for posting. This must be sad to know you were with him just a few days before the accident. There is no doubt he was one of those people that made a difference. I still find myself praying for his mom and girlfriend. It is such a tragic loss of life. For all involved it so very, very sad.

 

[SueM in MN]

At some point they said the trains had to be pulled into the station so they could get those inside off.

The purple train was in the station.
The pink train was backing up and the rear of the pink train was what hit the front cabin of the purple train (where Austin, the driver who was killed was).

Since the rear of the pink train was in the station at the time of the accident, the engine of the pink train was outside. In order for that driver to get out, his monorail had to be backed into the station.
The pictures that show both monorails outside the station were taken after the pink monorail had backed up enough so the pink engine was in the station and the driver could get out.

PrincessMickey, thanks for sharing your story.

JLTraveling, your story is pretty chilling.