After Ohio train derailment, tank cars didn’t need to be blown open to release chemical, NTSB says

The decision to blow open five tank cars and burn the toxic chemical inside them after a freight train derailed in Eastern Ohio last year wasn’t justified, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board told Congress Wednesday.

But she said the key decision makers who feared those tank cars were going to explode three days after the crash never had the information they needed.

The vinyl chloride released that day, combined with all the other chemicals that spilled and caught fire after the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, have left residents with lingering fears about possible long-term health consequences.

Experts from the company that made the vinyl chloride inside those tank cars, Oxy Vinyls, were telling contractors hired by Norfolk Southern railroad that they believed that no dangerous chemical reaction was happening, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said. But Oxy Vinyls was left out of the command center.