BOSTON (WHDH) - After a loose piece of metal caused Orange Line passengers to make a mad dash out of an enflamed train car on Thursday, Governor Charlie Baker doled out a failing grade to the MBTA. Safety experts told 7NEWS that the event is a hard one to wrap their heads around.
“I don’t understand where a piece of metal could fall off a train,” said transportation safety expert Carl Berkowitz. “Have you ever driven your car and a piece of metal has fallen off?”
MBTA officials stated that the 42-years-old Orange Line train was planned to be phased out in the near future but that it did pass a safety inspection less than a month ago.
According to transportation safety expert Keith Millhouse, while older models require more maintenance, emergencies such as the one that occurred Thursday are still highly preventable.
“The fact that they’re older does make them more susceptible to break down but there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to be run safely on a regular basis,” Millhouse said.
Millhouse also told 7NEWS that he believes that the MBTA is not taking the necessary safety precautions.
“There’s been a lot of lip service with respect to a culture of safety, but until you actually have it implemented and it is literally in the DNA of the people that work at the agency and govern the agency, you are going to continue to have incidents that happen,” Millhouse said.
According to Berkowitz, sometimes the necessary safety measures are as simple as trusting your eyes.
“Pieces of metal shouldn’t fall off,” said Berkowitz. “If you touch and feel it and look at it, you should be able to tell if it was a problem.”
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