A sad passing of two colleagues
It is with deep sadness that two SMRT staff, Nasrulhudin Bin Najumudin and Muhammad Asyraf Bin Ahmad Buhari, passed away today.
At around 11am on 22 March, a signalling condition monitoring device near Pasir Ris Station was triggered, and maintenance teams from the Permanent Way and Signal departments were sent to investigate. The teams moved in a single file along the walkway beside the track to the investigation location. Unfortunately, during the process, the accident occurred.
The safety of our people has always been the utmost priority and we are assisting the Police in their investigations into how the accident happened.
SMRT conveys our deepest condolences to the families of the deceased. We are in touch with the families and will be supporting them through this difficult time.
Desmond Kuek
SMRT President and Group CEO
First, my condolence to SMRT and the families of the two staff on the tragic accident. Needless to say, SMRT should spare no effort to thoroughly investigate and learn from this accident. Let me suggest a couple of areas to look at. The fact that the walkway is just enough for person, it is instinctively unsafe to have 2 OJT trainees following the supervisor, much less for another 12 behind them (I assume they are all trainees). In order for the 2 trainees to have a full view of the junction box and have maximum learning benefit, wouldn’t they have to step aside and possibly onto the railway track, and into the path of the train? I don’t want to be presumptious, but with 15 persons walking single file on the track, how do the people behind know when to stop or to keep walking? The “accordion” effect could easily bump a person out of line on to the track. Perhaps, you should consider the use of a go-pro with video monitors for such a situation, and also restrict OJT opportunities to one supervisor-one trainee at a time.