WASHINGTON — Two workers struck and killed by a PATCO train on the Benjamin Frankin Bridge in Camden, N.J., had entered the right-of-way before a track outage for maintenance work had been established, the National Transportation Safety Board said in determining probable cause as part of its final report on the Oct. 14, 2022, incident.
A failure to address right-of-way information in the pre-shift job briefing, although it was required under the Port Authority Transit Corp. Right-of-Way Safety Plan, was a contributing factor, the agency said in the final report released on Thursday, May 23.
The two workers were struck and killed about 9:21 p.m. by a westbound train traveling 33 mph on Main Track 2 of the bridge linking Philadelphia and Camden; they were subsequently identified as Victor Martins, 55, and Donato Fiocca, 53, of contractor JPC Group Inc. [see “Workers killed on Ben Franklin Bridge …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 3, 2022].
The workers were scheduled to put new caulking on columns of the bridge near the track’s third rail. Track 2 was scheduled to be taken out of service at 9:30 p.m., but the workers had entered the area — a close-clearance area with insufficient room for both people and trains — before that time. The train’s operator saw the workers and began emergency braking but struck them and continued about 100 feet before stopping.
Subsequent to the accident, the New Jersey Department of Transportation issued a safety action letter requiring PATCO to take five actions: A safety stand ndown to discuss the incident and review PATCO’s roadway worker protection program; providing NJDOT with updates on the accident investigation every 30 days; corrective actions including a requirement that PATCO representatives much be present when roadway workers enter the right of way; submission of forms showing completion of job briefing for all contracted work; and a review of PATCO’s Safety System Oversight program monitoring.
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