A Metro train operator who spent more than nine years out with an injured ankle had just finished “refresher training” 15 days before she derailed her train at Farragut North with more than 300 riders aboard last year, according to newly released federal documents. Wanda Olley failed a written test on her first try to become recertified as a train operator just days before the Feb. 12, 2010, accident, the documents show. She testified that she had not operated a train through the type of underground track where the derailment occurred since she had returned from her medical leave.
| Long-term foot injury sidelined operator before ‘refresher’ training |
| Wanda Olley underwent at most nine weeks of retraining – split into two segments months apart — when she returned to Metro after a nine-year hiatus, according to investigative documents. |
| New train operators must take a 13-week class to become certified, the transit agency has said. |
| Olley joined Metro in 1976 but had worked as a train operator for just over a year when she injured her foot on the job in 2000. She testified that she dislocated her foot during a fall while getting on a train. |
| The injury did not require surgery, she testified, but she initially went out on worker’s compensation, then permanent disability. |
| While she was gone, Metro created new safety policies, brought in new types of rail cars and opened new Metrorail stations. |
| Olley returned to Metro in late August 2009 but was there for less than three weeks when she reinjured the ankle and was out for another three months, the documents show. She underwent additional retraining from Dec. 7 to Jan. 28, 2010. |
| She described the classwork as a “refresher” course with multiple instructors subbed in and out and large class sizes that had to be divided. |
| “It was more intense back in the day,” she testified. “For the most part the training that I got was nowhere near the training that I got when I first started.” |
| She finished the retraining and won her certification after retaking a written test that she failed the day before. She then operated trains in rail yards before returning to shuttling around passengers. |
| To become a new train operator, Metro employees must take a 13-week class, including four to five weeks of on-the-job training, the agency has said. They learn train mechanics, the rail system, the train and track equipment. |
| Since the derailment, Metro has “implemented a more aggressive retraining program for operators who are out for an extended period of time,” Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein told The Washington Examiner in an e-mail. She could not provide specifics. — Kytja Weir |
“Inside I knew that I wanted to have a grasp of the information that I had before I left, and I didn’t have it all. OK?” she told National Transportation Safety Board investigators the day after the derailment. “I didn’t have it all.”
The documents were released as part of the NTSB investigation into the accident. NTSB spokeswoman Bridget Serchak declined to comment on the findings. “We like to say the facts just stand for themselves,” she said. The federal investigators are analyzing their findings to prepare a final report with recommendations for Metro.
The documents paint a picture of a chaotic morning leading to the incident. The derailment occurred outside the Farragut North station at the end of the morning rush on the first full day of train service after multiple snow days kept federal workers at home.
Olley’s Red Line train was misdirected into a side rail known as a pocket track that is often used for turning trains around. She ran a red signal, the documents show, and the train derailed as a protective measure to stop the train from going into the path of other trains.
The train tied up commuters and trapped some 345 passengers aboard for more than an hour, with three suffering minor injuries.
Olley declined to comment to The Washington Examiner about the case. She said she had retired from the transit agency. Metro documents show she was fired in March 2010.
Olley, who had been staying in a hotel while on snow duty that week, testified that a supervisor yelled at her for taking a break before the derailment occurred. Then she had the wrong number for her train and was confused about where she was supposed to take it.
Another supervisor helped reprogram the destination of her train but “she didn’t realize that other steps were required” to finish the changeover.
She also said she had a hard time understanding the static-filled radio transmissions from central control that she called “gobbledygook.” She testified that she was still getting her “radio ears” back, meaning the ability to understand all the chatter on the train system radios.
And she said she had a hard time seeing in the dark tunnel where the derailment occurred, even while using the equivalent of the train’s high beams.
But she said she heard what she thought was the operations control center telling her to run the light. “And if I didn’t feel that in my spirit that I heard what I heard, I would have never have moved that train,” she testified. “Never.”
