WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal safety officials are returning to a backlog of accidents, some of them deadly, that investigators did not examine because they occurred during the partial government shutdown.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that it didn’t send investigators to 15 aviation accidents in which 21 people died, two highway accidents that killed seven, and two railroad accidents that left two more dead.
Work also stopped on more than 1,800 aviation-safety investigations.
During the 35-day shutdown, more than 90 percent of the NTSB’s 367 staffers were furloughed. Four investigators were called back to work without pay on three international aviation accidents.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he agreed to end the shutdown until Feb. 15 without getting money to build a wall on the border with Mexico.
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