According to a July 19, AP report “The operator of a light-rail train that crashed [in San Francisco], injuring dozens of passengers as well as the operator, came under scrutiny on Sunday as federal investigators tried to figure out why he turned off the automatic controls moments before the accident. Ted Turpin, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the operator switched the controls from automatic to manual in a tunnel near the West Portal Station and that he never engaged the emergency brake. Had the operator kept the autopilot on, Mr. Turpin said, the train would have slowed down before arriving at the station and most likely not have careened into a parked train while going 23 miles per hour.”
FDA looking at Metal to Metal hips
May 25, 2011
The FDA wants companies making ‘metal on metal’ artificial hips to take a closer look at how patients fare after their hip replacement surgery.
The FDA seeks this “in response to an increasing number of consumer complaints about the implants”, along with last year’s recall of an all-metal