From the Associated Press 2 May 2022, 16:18 • 3 minutes reading Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Email this article BOSTON – A passenger door on a Boston subway car did not work properly when a man grabbed his arm and was dragged to his death last month, federal investigators said Monday. The trains are equipped with safety features to prevent them from moving when the doors are blocked, the National Transportation Safety Council wrote in the preliminary report. “NTSB investigators examined and tested the railway vehicle involved after the accident, detecting a fault in a local door control system that allowed the train to move with the door obstructed,” the report said. The MBTA in a statement on Monday recognized the problem as a “short circuit”. The man, identified by local authorities as Robinson Lalin, 39, from Boston, died around 12:30 p.m. on April 12 as he derailed the six-car Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Red Line at Broadway Station. Lalin stuck his right hand in the door and dragged more than 100 feet across the platform, to a lower surface near the rails, the NTSB report said. His death was confirmed at the scene. “The NTSB has confirmed the MBTA’s initial assessment of a short circuit in the car wiring that allowed the train to start moving while Mr Lalin was trying to get out of the closing doors,” the MBTA said in a statement. MBTA inspected the doors of the other wagons and found no similar problems. “During rigorous testing, the problem with the car accident could not be reproduced in any of the other Red Line cars of the same make and model,” said T. The wagon and the train operator remain out of order. The investigation is ongoing. The NTSB has so far inspected and tested the train equipment, reviewed safety videos, observed train operations, conducted interviews and made remote observations. The NTSB said Monday’s report was preliminary and subject to change. There were other security issues with the MBTA last year. Nine people were injured in September when an escalator at Back Bay Station malfunctioned and more than a dozen went to hospital last July when a Green Line train drove back to another trolley. The T statement said security is a priority and the agency has spent $ 8 billion on infrastructure and vehicle investments over the past five years and has almost doubled the size of the security department in the last three years.
