Operator error apparently led to CTA derailment

A preliminary investigation has determined that Wednesday's derailment of a Chicago Transit Authority train was likely caused by the operator who apparently made two key errors in quick succession.

The operator of the southbound Green Line train failed to heed a red signal ordering him to stop, CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said. After the four-car train went through the signal, it automatically activated a trip, which stopped the train.

But the operator, she said, moved the train forward again at a junction where the tracks split before the tracks were switched into proper position, causing the rear end of the front car and the second car to derail, with the other two cars remaining on the tracks.

More Coverage Video "Everybody was screaming"

"He was going on the wrong tracks, or started to," Gaffney explained of the derailment in which all the cars remained standing.

The derailment, which sent 14 people to the hospital, none with life-threatening injuries, remained under investigation and there was still a possibility the aging transit system played a role, Gaffney said.

"The signals at this location were installed in the 1970s and refurbished in 1996," she said. "But some components are still more than 30 years old."

However, an analysis of devices that record the signals, "indicate that the signal was red and the operator proceeded past it," she said.

Gaffney also said investigators were interviewing the operator, who has 31 years experience, and he was cooperative. She said he would undergo drug testing and would not be allowed to return to work until the investigation was completed.

Whatever happened, the derailment jolted the passengers enough to cause injuries as well as leave them fearing for their lives as the train was perched on the elevated track about 22 feet above the ground.

"Everybody was screaming and hollering and you know, and praying for God," said 35-year-old Willie Jackson, who was aboard the train's second car when it derailed and leaned west off the tracks.

"I was just hoping that train didn't go over the edge. That was the only thing I was really concerned about," he said. "If the train would have fell off the edge on to the ground, we probably would have been dead and hurt real bad."

And Renee Davis could hear that "hollering, screaming, praying" when her sister, Mary Ann Baker, called her on her cell phone after the derailment.

"She said it just spin around, it just tipped," Davis said of her sister. "She hit her head, her whole body."

Baker was one of 14 people taken to area hospitals. Of them 11 were considered in good condition and three were in fair, said Fire Commissioner Raymond Orozco. A total of 25 people were on the train, including one CTA employee.

Some of the injured were loaded onto fire department power ladder baskets and lowered to the ground, where they were put in ambulances. Others were led off the tracks via a CTA stairwell near the derailment site, officials said.

As with other derailments of CTA trains, this one triggered a swift response from Chicago police investigators, who quickly looked for indications someone had sabotaged the train.

The derailment also served as yet another example of problems for the city's deteriorating century-old train system, which runs throughout the city and to nearby communities on elevated and underground tracks.

Last month, a Red Line train derailed as it pulled into a station on the Chicago-Evanston border. A week earlier, an electrical problem caused a Blue Line train to stall in a subway, forcing the evacuation of up to 100 passengers and shutting down service between downtown and O'Hare International Airport. Seven people were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.

The system made national headlines July 16, 2006, when another crowded rush-hour Blue Line train derailed in a subway, causing a smoky fire that injured more than 150 people, six seriously.

Last September, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a blistering report of the system, saying a seriously flawed inspection and maintenance program likely played a major role in the derailment.

The NTSB also found that insufficient time allowed for inspections and limited training of inspectors contributed to unsafe conditions on the Blue Line. At the time, the CTA said it had already implemented many of the NTSB's safety recommendations.