Safety procedure to stop trains ‘not followed’ in fatal accident

SINGAPORE — Amid public outrage and grief over the death of two SMRT trainees who were killed on Tuesday in the line of duty, the transport operator yesterday said its records suggest that during the accident, a key safety procedure — to ensure trains do not enter sectors where maintenance workers had to step on the trackway — was not followed.

SMRT also revealed that the train captain had immediately applied the emergency brakes when he saw the staff on the track but he was unable to prevent the accident which killed Muhammad Asyraf Ahmad Buhari, 24, and Nasrulhudin Najumudin, 26.

“We take responsibility and apologise for the tragic accident. We express our deepest condolences to the families ... in their time of grief,” SMRT said, adding it would continue to support the police and the Manpower Ministry in their investigations.

Mr Asyraf and Mr Nasrulhudin — who were laid to rest yesterday, side by side — were part of a 15-member team comprising an engineer, five assistant engineers, five technical officers and four trainees deployed to investigate a reported alarm.

Providing a timeline of the events leading up to the accident, SMRT said that at 8.08am on Tuesday, a warning was registered by a “signalling condition monitoring device” installed along the tracks near Pasir Ris MRT Station.

Fourteen minutes before the accident occurred at 11.08am, authorisation was granted for the employees to “move down from the station platform, cross the track, and access the maintenance walkway in order to proceed to the location of the device”.

“Led by an experienced assistant engineer, they moved in a single file along the maintenance walkway (of approximately 0.5m width) beside the track toward the device location,” SMRT said. It added that the 15 employees followed the safety procedure of walking in the direction facing oncoming train traffic. Mr Asyraf and Mr Nasrulhudin were second and third in the line, “following immediately behind” the assistant engineer.

SMRT said before the team was allowed to step back onto the trackway, it had to coordinate with the station’s signal unit “for oncoming trains to be brought to a stop and to ensure that no trains enter the affected sector”. “Our records do not show that this procedure took place,” SMRT said.

The operator noted that Pasir Ris MRT Station is a terminal station and arriving trains can berth at either of its two platforms. Trains can cross from one track to the other as they approach the station.

The train involved in the accident, which was moving in automatic mode, was routed to berth at Platform 2, from where the team had descended on the track.

SMRT explained that power to the third rail, which supplies power to the train, is turned off only when staff need to come into contact with the third rail, or carry out work on it. This was not necessary in this case, it added.

SMRT said it is a priority to deliver “a high level of reliability” in its train network. To ensure this, maintenance has to be carried out during service hours. Whenever a warning is registered along the network, maintenance staff are given track access to investigate the cause, with an average of two to three such authorisations given daily.

“At no time do we compromise the safety of staff and commuters in our efforts to keep up the required service standards,” SMRT said. It is mindful that safety procedures which are in place “need to be followed closely as they are intended for staff and commuter well-being and protection”.

SMRT said this was the first time a fatality involving SMRT staff has happened on the North-South East-West Lines. In 2010, 48-year-old SMRT technician Chia Teck Heng succumbed to injuries and died days after he was hit by an LRT train while conducting maintenance work on the track.

Following the latest accident, SMRT said it has established a team to immediately evaluate all workplace safety procedures. Mandatory work-team level safety reviews have also been instituted.