Ex-SMRT assistant engineer gets 4 weeks’ jail for causing death of 2 trainees in 2016

SINGAPORE — It was his negligence that led to the deaths of two SMRT trainees in 2016, because he failed to ensure that the necessary safety measures were in place before leading a group of 15 crew members to inspect the rail tracks. 

Lim Say Heng, a former assistant engineer with the transport operator SMRT, was on Monday (March 12) sentenced to four weeks’ jail. He pleaded guilty to one count of causing death by a negligent act. 

On March 22 in 2016, SMRT trainees Muhammad Asyraf Ahmad Buhari, 24, and Nasrulhudin Najumudin, 26, were killed by a train travelling between Tampines and Pasir Ris MRT stations in the morning. They were part of the 15-man team who went onto the tracks near Pasir Ris station to check on a warning signal from a monitoring device. 

Lim, who was with the company from 1999 to 2016 when he was sacked, had led inspection teams on numerous occasions when they had to get on the tracks. 

That morning, after a machine fault was reported, Lim was supposed to make sure that a train protection speed code was imposed before they could get access to the track. It was part of the safety protocol. 

The code, also known as the 0/0 code, would prevent trains from freely entering the site where the team would be. 

Investigations revealed that the team did not comply with the standard operating procedures for accessing tracks during operating hours. 

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Anandan Bala told the court that while Lim informed the technical officers on standby that he required their help in activating the 0/0 code later on, he did not say who from the team would be making the call. 

Lim “assumed” that the technical officer with him on the tracks would instruct his colleague on standby to impose the safety code, DPP Anandan added.

However, the code was not activated at all throughout the time. 

Furthermore, instead of boarding a train to the worksite for inspection, as stipulated, they walked there. 

And instead of putting up a mandatory printed sign to warn incoming trains and their drivers of the worksite, there was a handwritten sign that did not indicate that there were people working on the track. 

This led the train driver involved in the incident to travel as usual from Tampines to Pasir Ris. 

In the end, it was a technical officer monitoring train activity near the worksite who noticed the incoming train. He radioed the inspection team to inform them, but no one heard the alert.

It was only later when the officer ran to the platform and shouted at the team that Lim managed to jump off the tracks. For the two trainees behind him, it was too late and they were hit by the train.

RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOUR, BASELESS ASSUMPTIONS

DPP Anandan said that Lim “clearly exhibited risk-taking behaviour and jeopardised the safety of his work party by making numerous baseless assumptions”. He also noted Lim’s years of experience with the company, so he was “acutely aware that track access during traffic hours is an inherently dangerous activity”. 

“Yet, he did not take any reasonable safety measure whatsoever to ensure the safety of his team,” DPP Anandan added. 

Lim’s lawyers, led by Ms Lee May Ling, urged the court to impose the maximum fine of S$10,000 for their client, pointing to his good safety track record with the company. 

Ms Lee argued that it was SMRT which had failed in ensuring that its employees complied with safety protocol when carrying track inspection, and it also failed in enforcing the protocol. 

“In short, the employees of SMRT were left to devise ad-hoc safety arrangements for their own protection,” she said. 

However, District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt said that “there is no denying” that Lim, as the team’s supervisor, had failed to impose the safety code, which was “the last line of defence”. “The non-adherence to the (0/0 code) was most proximate to the cause of death,” he added. 

In sentencing Lim, he agreed with the prosecution that a jail sentence should be imposed. 

Lim, who was in court with his family, will start serving his sentence immediately. 

For causing death by a negligent act, he could have been jailed up to two years, and/or fined. 

Last year, Lim’s colleague, SMRT control operations director Teo Wee Kiat, was fined S$55,000 after he was found guilty of failing to take the needed safety measures, which led to the death of the two trainees. 

SMRT was also slapped with a record S$400,000 fine last year for its role in the accident.