The CTA train operator at the controls when a Blue Line derailed at O’Hare Airport has been fired.
The crash was the second time in the 60 days the driver worked for CTA that she had reportedly fallen asleep on the job according to National Transportation and Safety Board administrator Ted Turpin.
Thirty-two people were injured March 24, 2014 when the train jumped the tracks and traveled up a flight of stairs at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport just before 3 a.m.
Before that incident, the same train operator overshot the Belmont station platform so it was unsafe to open train car doors on February 1, 2014.
CTA spokeswoman Tammy Chase said the union contract says it is within CTA’s rights to seek termination following two serious safety violations according to our sister station WGN.
Investigators were also working to determine why backup safety measures apparently failed to stop the train automatically.
