A Tube driver who failed to notice his train doors were open as he drove at 40mph had “zoned out” after skipping breakfast, an investigation revealed today.
Thirty passengers were on the Jubilee line train when it was driven north from Finchley Road to West Hampstead at about 9am on Saturday September 1 last year.
The incident went viral when one passenger shared a video of 10 of the seven-carriage train’s 14 sets of left-hand doors open to the track.
The experienced driver, who had risen for work at 4am after six hours’ sleep, had not eaten for 13 hours at the time of the incident, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch said today.
He only realised the doors were open when a passenger pulled the safety handle as the train reached West Hampstead.
Other trains on the line were then ordered to drive slowly as an urgent search was launched to check whether any passengers had fallen onto the tracks. None had.
The driver had accidentally flipped a switch that prevented the train from departing with its doors open as he attempted to fix another problem at Finchley Road.
Today’s RAIB report said the driver’s actions “were probably influenced by” a sudden increase in his workload as he attempted to fix the problem, “fatigue” from getting up early and “low blood sugar levels from a prolonged period without food”.
Simon French, Chief Inspector of Rail Accidents, said: This very unusual incident highlights the stresses which Underground train operators can be subject to when something goes wrong.
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“A technical fault which developed suddenly and without warning created a situation which the train operator had never encountered before. His attempts to solve the problem led him to isolate a safety circuit and move off without checking that the train doors were properly closed.
“In fact, 10 sets of doors along one side of the train were wide open as the train ran the full distance to the next station. It is fortunate that there was no-one close to the doors at the time.”
The RAIB called for London Underground to introduce aviation-style training to prepare drivers to respond to unexpected problems.
Today’s report said: “The train operator stated that he had ‘zoned out’ and made ‘rushed decisions’ when dealing with the door problems at Finchley Road.
“These are indicators, that the sudden transition from a low workload to high workload situation, fatigue and/or low blood sugar levels were probably adversely affecting his capacity to deal with the stress caused by the unusual situation and relatively high workload he encountered at Finchley Road station.
“It is also possible that the train operator’s concentration was adversely affected by low blood sugar levels because he had not eaten anything for around 13 hours before the incident. This included the approximately three hours since he had woken up.”
Jill Collis, TfL’s Director of Health, Safety and Environment, said: “The safety of our staff and our customers is always our top priority and is at the heart of everything we do. We have worked closely with the RAIB during their investigation, and have already started work on several of their recommendations following an internal report that was completed earlier this year.
"We will continue to review our procedures to ensure we consider all of the recommendations made in the RAIB report, and continue to work to ensure that the Tube network is as safe as possible.”