Latest Transportation Headlines
All the headlines from our Transportation Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Last Year’ Fiery Iowa Derailment Caused by Broken Rail, Poor Repairs
Nov 1 2018 // Federal investigators determined that a broken rail caused the fiery 2017 train derailment in northwest Iowa that released 322,000 gallons of ethanol. The National Transportation Safety Board has ruled that Union...
Time to Upgrade Airline Black Boxes, Says Safety Board
Oct 19 2018 // The ubiquitous black boxes on airliners — designed to capture the sometimes gruesome words and sounds leading up to crashes — need an upgrade, U.S. accident investigators say. In too many cases, the current two...
NTSB: Texas Driver’s Drug Use Led to Deadly Church Bus Crash
Oct 19 2018 // A motorist’s use of marijuana and a sedative led to a collision with a church bus that killed 13 people on the bus, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report released on Oct. 16. According to the...
National Safety Board Calls for Standards for Drugged Driving Tests
Oct 18 2018 // U.S. transportation safety officials are sounding the alarm on drug-impaired driving, calling for state and federal regulators to do more to tackle the growing problem as states grapple with prescription drug abuse and...
Calls for New Regulation Mount as New York Limo Crash Victims Mourned
Oct 16 2018 // The day after a mourning community said last goodbyes to eight of 20 victims of a limousine crash – four sisters and four other relatives – the Senate’s top Democrat called on federal regulators to...
U.S. Limo Regulations Probed After Deadly New York Crash, NTSB Says
Oct 9 2018 // The National Transportation Safety Board will examine federal oversight of the limousine industry as part of its investigation into a deadly New York state crash that killed 20 people in the worst U.S. transportation event...
U.S. Safety Agency Targets Pilot Fatigue with Technology, Stricter Work Rules
Sep 26 2018 // U.S. accident investigators probing a San Francisco incident last year in which a jetliner was mere feet from landing on top of at least one other plane are poised to recommend new automated safety warnings and better...
No Problems Cited in Preliminary NTSB Report for Vermont Plane Crash
Sep 12 2018 // A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board finds no apparent reason for a fatal plane crash last month in Brighton, Vermont. The Caledonian Record reports that it’ll likely be months before a...
NTSB: Errors Led to Death of 2 BNSF Railroad Workers in South Dakota
Sep 10 2018 // A series of human errors led to a BNSF Railway train striking and killing two railroad workers in South Dakota last year, federal investigators said. The National Transportation Safety Board released its report on Sept. 6...
Unsafe Mississippi Rail Crossing Caused Fatal 2017 Bus Crash
Sep 3 2018 // A train crash into a tour bus that killed four in Mississippi last year stemmed from the railroad and the city failing to improve an unsafe rail crossing, federal safety regulators concluded last month. The March 2017...
NTSB: Failure to Fix Unsafe Mississippi Rail Crossing Caused Fatal Bus Crash
Aug 10 2018 // A train crash into a tour bus that killed four in Mississippi last year stemmed from the railroad and the city failing to improve an unsafe rail crossing, federal safety regulators concluded Tuesday. The March 2017 crash...
NTSB Says Plane Reported Loss of Power Before Rural Maine Crash
Aug 2 2018 // The National Transportation Safety Board says a twin-engine propeller aircraft reported a loss of power right before a crash that killed three people. A spokesman for the NTSB said the plane, called an Aerostar AEST, was...
$100M Lawsuit Filed in Fatal Missouri Duck Boat Sinking
Jul 31 2018 // The owners and operators of a tourist boat that sank this month in Missouri, killing 17 people, put profits over people’s safety when they decided to put the Ride the Ducks boat on a lake despite design problems and...
NTSB Questions CSX Safety Procedures After Deadly South Carolina Train Crash
Jul 13 2018 // Federal investigators on Tuesday grilled train company executives about a deadly South Carolina crash that happened earlier this year, asking officials with the company that owns the tracks about changes within the company...
Amtrak Rail Cars in Fatal Washington Crash Had Safety Waiver
Jul 11 2018 // The passenger rail cars on an Amtrak train that derailed near Seattle, Wash. last December, killing three people, were allowed by federal regulators to stay in service even though they didn’t meet current...
Safety Probe of Tesla Crash Cites Battery Fire Risk
Jun 27 2018 // A Tesla Inc. Model S involved in a May 8 fatal high-speed crash in Florida reignited twice after firefighters extinguished a fire in the electric vehicle, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a...
Uber Disabled Brake of Self-Driving Car in Arizona Fatal Crash
May 25 2018 // Uber had disabled an emergency braking system in a self-driving vehicle that struck and killed a woman in Arizona in March even though the car had identified the need to apply the brakes, the National Transportation Safety...
The Road Ahead for Autonomous Cars and Auto Insurance
May 17 2018 // The death of a pedestrian who was struck by an autonomous vehicle in Tempe, Arizona, has brought fresh scrutiny to the accelerating development of self-driving cars. The accident on March 18 is bound to be studied...
Uber Hires Ex-Regulator for Safety Advice; Website Says Software Flaw Caused Accident
May 9 2018 // Uber Technologies Inc. on Monday said it has retained a former top U.S. transportation official to advise it on safety after a fatal self-driving crash in March, but it declined to comment on a technology website’s...
Southwest Air Jet Engine That Failed Was Inspected 7 Times
May 4 2018 // The fan blade that failed on a Southwest Airlines Co. plane last month, killing a passenger, had been inspected seven times since late 2012 but without the sophisticated technology airlines are now under orders to use. The...
