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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the National Transportation Safety Board's findings about a fatal 2015 accident on the Washington subway (all times local):
3 p.m.
Federal investigators have found that a fire that killed a Washington subway passenger last year was caused by the Metro system's "ineffective inspection and maintenance practices."
The National Transportation Safety Board adopted its final report on the January 2015 fire during a meeting on Tuesday. One woman died and dozens of passengers were sickened when an electrical malfunction caused a train to fill with smoke inside a downtown Washington tunnel.
The NTSB described the malfunction as a "prolonged short circuit" that can be traced to Metro's poor maintenance. NTSB investigators found that the third-rail power cables at the site of the malfunction were damaged by moisture and other contaminants.
NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart stressed that a lack of strong federal oversight has led to Metro's failure to make safety improvements.
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10:55 a.m.
The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board says Washington's subway system appears not to have made meaningful safety improvements since a fatal accident in 2009.
The board is meeting Tuesday to determine what caused a January 2015 fire inside a downtown tunnel that killed one passenger and injured dozens more.
NTSB investigators have found problems with the third-rail power cables and repeated water leaks at the site of the electrical malfunction that led to the fire.
The board made several recommendations to the Metro subway system after a 2009 crash that killed nine people. Board chairman Christopher Hart said Tuesday that "safety still is not institutionalized as a core value" at Metro. He says the problems that led to the 2015 fire "were allowed to develop and persist."
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