3 accused crew members found not guilty in Lac Megantic tragedy

[Chacal]

Nearly five years after one of the worst rail disasters in Canadian history, a small town at the centre of the tragedy is still grappling with the aftermath.
Labrie, Harding and Jean Demaitre, the manager of train operations, were eventually charged with criminal negligence causing the death of 47 people and ordered to stand trial. The trial, which began last Oct. 2, ended Friday afternoon on the ninth day of jury deliberations

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/lac-megan ... -1.3766398
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42548824

[JerryC]

In my opinion, this, and the decision to let the engineer of Amtrak 188 walk, is a travesty of justice. I have read the full Transport Canada report, and the decision to take shortcuts and not apply enough handbrakes to hold the train, as well as failing to test the train to see if the handbrakes that were applied would hold is absolutely negligent. 47 people dead (+8 on Amturd 188), the better part of a town destroyed, several million dollars in damage and NO ONE is held accountable. What a load of bullshiat.

[BNSFdude]

In my opinion, this, and the decision to let the engineer of Amtrak 188 walk, is a travesty of justice. I have read the full Transport Canada report, and the decision to take shortcuts and not apply enough handbrakes to hold the train, as well as failing to test the train to see if the handbrakes that were applied would hold is absolutely negligent. 47 people dead (+8 on Amturd 188), the better part of a town destroyed, several million dollars in damage and NO ONE is held accountable. What a load of bullshiat.

Transport Canada should be held responsible for allowing a railroad to operate with one man crews in the first place. Same thing with Amtrak 188, and the Cascades incident. Amtrak should be held responsible for understaffing trains.

[JohnS]

Deleted, Duplicate

[JohnS]

Amtrak 188 is a completely different animal and he should have been accountable. This disaster was not the fault of the crew. The engineer followed Canadian Railroad rules in tying down his train. A home owner near the Tied down train reported a "fire" on the engines. It was carbon "sparks" from the exhaust that's common with idling turbo charged diesel locomotives. The fire department arrived on seen and used the emergency fuel cut off buttons to shut the locomotives down. A mechanical guy shows up on scene as well. The event recorder shows someone releasing the train brake AFTER the engines were shut down. This caused the runaway. In no way should the crew of one guy be held accountable for following the rules he was trained on and followed because someone came along and didn't do their job correctly or didn't have proper knowledge of trains in general. Good call on the jury. Now they need to take this mistake and examine the rules and train first responders better.

[JerryC]

If Thomas Harding had tested the handbrakes that he applied against the locomotive WITHOUT factoring in the locomotive/train brakes, as he was supposed to do, he would have found that not enough handbrakes had been applied to the consist. But he did not do this, and his train rolled away when it lost brake-pipe pressure after the fire department shut down the locomotive. You can point out training, and company proceedure, and the number of crewmen in the cab, but the fact is that this train was HIS responsibility, as he was the operator who was in charge of it when these fatal mistakes were made. He was the one who, after NOT applying the required amount of brakes and NOT properly pull-testing the consist, told the dispatchers that everything was good.

Read the report for yourselves. Most interesting.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 3d0054.asp

[Chacal]

There is no doubt of this, but "criminal negligence causing death is one of the Criminal Code provisions that is difficult to prove".
Harding is facing other accusations as well, and he's going to live with this burden for the rest of his life.
Other parties are responsible too: MMA, and the federal transportation authority.

It took a perfect storm of everybody making a small bad decision at the same time for this accident to occur.

This rings a bell for me: 15 years ago I was part of such a perfect storm that wiped out the production databases for the IRS in a canadian province. At 2AM I was on the phone with one very angry CEO. It cost about a million to go back to normal operations. There were about 10 people involved, each making a small mistake at the wrong moment. Nobody was fired. Now I use this incident as an example in security awareness training.

[JerryC]

Yes, but, an IRS database can be recovered. 47 people cannot. Somehow the comparison just does not have the same weight. As a matter of fact, there are some who would say your incident might deserve a medal!

[PennCentral670]

I have no word on the engineers of Lac Megantic but for Amtrak 188, I'm glad the engineer had the charges dropped since there was no evidence of any wrongdoing or criminal negligence from him and should have not been charged in the first place. For Lac Megantic, it's much worse since a town was literally destroyed by highly flammable tanker cars. I don't care if the Lac Megantic crew members were found guilty or not, they weren't the only ones who should be responsible for the accident. There is a lot more behind this like the company polices and training and same goes with Amtrak and what happened with 188 with the implementation of PTC. But both of these accidents could have been preventable but accidents happen.

[Chacal]

Yes, but, an IRS database can be recovered. 47 people cannot. Somehow the comparison just does not have the same weight. As a matter of fact, there are some who would say your incident might deserve a medal!

Yeah, I'm almost proud of it, but my point is, in this kind of perfect storm, you can't really pin the blame on one single person. The whole chain of events and actors are responsible.

[JohnS]

Yes, but, an IRS database can be recovered. 47 people cannot. Somehow the comparison just does not have the same weight. As a matter of fact, there are some who would say your incident might deserve a medal!

Yeah, I'm almost proud of it, but my point is, in this kind of perfect storm, you can't really pin the blame on one single person. The whole chain of events and actors are responsible.

This is one of the best explanations I've read. Thank you Chacal.

[JerryC]

I am fairly certain that the fact that justice was not served in the case of Amtrak 188 and in the MMA case, and the fact that some of you here are supporting the verditcs, is based on the fact that you are biased because you have either chosen trains as a hobby or you work for the railroad. Step back for a moment and look at what actually happened here. PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES because of the inattention or inaction of one or more people. Ask yourself these two questions. 1.) Would you be so quick to release these people from blame if it was your loved one that had died, or if you had been involved in this and had sustained a serious injury? 2.) Would you be so eager to absolve blame if it had been a truck driver who had let his rig get out of control and killed someone, or if it had been someone behind the wheel of a car who had been distracted in some way?

[buzz456]

It's called contributory negligence and it's not a crime like in a criminal offense. It's cause for a civil suit at least in the US. I'm not that familiar with Canadian law. As far as whether it is a member of ones family of course you might be more emotional about it but the facts are the facts.

[JohnS]

I am fairly certain that the fact that justice was not served in the case of Amtrak 188 and in the MMA case, and the fact that some of you here are supporting the verditcs, is based on the fact that you are biased because you have either chosen trains as a hobby or you work for the railroad. Step back for a moment and look at what actually happened here. PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES because of the inattention or inaction of one or more people. Ask yourself these two questions. 1.) Would you be so quick to release these people from blame if it was your loved one that had died, or if you had been involved in this and had sustained a serious injury? 2.) Would you be so eager to absolve blame if it had been a truck driver who had let his rig get out of control and killed someone, or if it had been someone behind the wheel of a car who had been distracted in some way?

I work for the Railroad and I have run trains around that curve more times than I can count where amtrak 188 derailed and that guy should have been punished along with amtrak for allowing him to operate a train. In his statement he said he didnt know where he was and lost situational awareness. He should and Amtrak should have taken more training time. The MMA Engineer did everything per his and Canadian rules of that time and shouldn't be held accountable for others messing with the train after he left it.

[PennCentral670]

that guy should have been punished along with amtrak for allowing him to operate a train. In his statement he said he didnt know where he was and lost situational awareness. He should and Amtrak should have taken more training time.

I completely disagree on the Amtrak engineer being punished because anyone can make mistakes. The engineer was monitoring a situation via radio about another train being stopped in his way for safety precautions. That is responsible but being distracted where you are can be a problem. He wasn't speeding to be reckless, it was because he thought he already passed the curve. But I do agree there should be better training for engineers to know where they're are and how to monitor situations. Even the most experienced can make mistakes like this. I disagree in the engineer being punished because there was no evidence he was acting in a criminal way and it should stay that way.