Skip to content

ntsb

Report on Disney World Monorail Accident of July 2009 released by NTSB

The monorail station could be looking like this a lot more when Disney institutes its new reduced hours for the trains.

All the adjustments in policy and procedures have already been made, employees disciplined, OSHA fines levied, and the family’s lawsuit settled. All that we have been waiting for is the final federal investigation’s Accident Report. Today the National Transportation and Safety Board released that report putting a period on the end of a long sentence that I’m sure Disney World would like to put behind them.

That sentence started with a conflagration of errors by operators, management, and poor enforcement of existing policies that ended in the tragic death of a Walt Disney World Monorail Operator early on the morning of July 5th, 2009.

The report itself, issued this afternoon (releasing something on a holiday is almost like intentionally burying it, I wonder if that was coordinated in any way?), is written a very factual manner and in a plainly stated way. The facts outlined clearly put majority of the blame on inadequate procedures and failure to enforce the exact safety procedures that would have prevented the accident. To its credit Disney has made a lot of changes to correct what went wrong, but even if Disney had just enforced one of the common sense errors, this tragedy could have been averted.

Read More »Report on Disney World Monorail Accident of July 2009 released by NTSB

NTSB unloads documents related to Fatal July 2009 Monorail Accident

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released a group of documents related to its investigation of the fatal July 2009 monorail accident. I’ve opened a “group source” wiki to try and make sense of it all, establish a timeline, and identify any errors or… Read More »NTSB unloads documents related to Fatal July 2009 Monorail Accident

Disney to refine Monorail Procedures with new Position

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Walt Disney World is refining its procedures at it’s Monorail system to include a new position, at a higher pay scale, who will be responsible for overseeing traffic along the system. We are still awaiting the final report from… Read More »Disney to refine Monorail Procedures with new Position

The Monorail Troubles

I’m getting a lot of reports about the troubles Disney had with the Magic Kingdom monorail system this weekend. Turns out the worst was some inconvenience for guests that Disney could have handled better. However, they’re really playing with fire. I have a report from… Read More »The Monorail Troubles

NTSB Report on Fatal Monorail Accident to be delayed

Update: Apparently this news is no news at all. For NTSB is still on their approximately 1 year from incident timeline for the accident. For a while lit looked like the NTSB report on the Disney World fatal monorail accident would be swift in coming.… Read More »NTSB Report on Fatal Monorail Accident to be delayed

NTSB Pleased with Changes Disney Making to Monorail Operations

The new National Transportation and Safety Board Chairwoman has only been on the job a week, but she’s already given at least one interview regarding the Walt Disney World Monorail Accident that resulted in the death of a cast member. So far, Disney appears to… Read More »NTSB Pleased with Changes Disney Making to Monorail Operations

NTSB Updates Monorail Investigation Progress

In a letter sent to the local press today the NTSB has updated the status of the investigation into the Monorail accident of July 5th at Walt Disney World. In addition to interviews with the employees involved, they’ve begun to review documents provided by Walt Disneyworld.

Interestingly the letter claims they’ve received ‘most’ of what they requested. This includes: “employee records showing training, work history and work hours; monorail standard operating procedures; and mechanical maintenance and inspection history of the trains and switch mechanism.” The investigators are being thorough, that’s good to see. Let’s hope they’re also looking at comparisons to historical practices versus what was in place at the parks at the time.

Look for the report to be finished in about 6 months.

The full text of the letter is below the cut:

Read More »NTSB Updates Monorail Investigation Progress

Disney suspends two cast members over Monorail Crash

Update: turns out the driver of Monorail Pink was placed on administrative leave as well. All the leave is with pay pending the results of the investigation. Local TV channel WESH is reporting that two Disney World employees have been suspended pending further investigation of… Read More »Disney suspends two cast members over Monorail Crash