The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded a two and half year investigation with Walt Disney Resorts regarding the wrongful death of 21-year-old employee, Austin Wuennenberg. The NTSB’s report was 14 pages long and tackled Disney from all angles, investigating the procedures and policies that could have been enforced which would have prevented the work related death of Wuennenberg.
Wuennenberg was operating a monorail train that was traveling on Epcot’s Loop Track and was shutting down for the night. At the same time, another train was transferring from the same track onto a Switch Beam, which required a controller to activate a track switch. The track switch was never engaged and the train kept going in reverse onto Wuennenberg’s path. The trains collided, killed Wuennenberg, and cost $24 million dollars in property damage.
Though NTSB’s report cited two negligent coordinators as the primary cause, it goes much deeper than that. The park is also at fault due to lack of standard operating procedures leading to unsafe practice when reversing trains.
For instance, the driver that operated the train that killed Wuennenberg never switched from the front to the back of the train when he was driving it in reverse, so to operate it more safely in a forward-facing position. The driver has said that it was not uncommon practice. Which made investigators question why would this kind of procedure be allowed?
Another note that the report investigated was Disney’s lack of requirement for the cooordinator to be in the control tower when directing the monorail systems. The tower has a grid showing the monorail beams’ alignment and an emergency shutdown switch that can stop all trains at any time. The switch could have saved Wuennenberg’s life had a coordinator been present in the tower.
Another thing that puzzled Investigators was that the Park does not require employees in the monorail shop to be responsible for operating the track switches. In the shop, there are video monitors that show the position of the switch beams. After interviewing many workers, they have said that the monitors are mainly used to verify a train is not on the beam before activating the switch – rather than using the monitors to verify the track had been realigned after the command was entered in the tower.
According to Greg Hale, the chief safety officer of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, upon reading the 14 page report from the NTSB, they have reviewed the monorail operations and have already started enhancing the system.
The death of Wuennenberg could have been easily prevented if proper safety precautions had been taken.
If you or someone you love has been injured or killed because of a Work Related Accident, contact the lawyers at V&B for free information and a free consultation on how we may help.
Category: Wrongful Death
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