Robinson Lalin’s death on MBTA Red Line caused by short circuit, NTSB says

By Ryan Mancini | masslive.com

A Dorchester man dragged to death on the MBTA Red Line train in 2022 may have been the result of a short circuit of a door on the train, even with a failsafe in place to prevent movement when an obstruction is detected in a door, a federal investigation report said.

Examinations and testing by the National Transportation Safety Board found that this short circuit led to the door closing on Robinson Lalin’s upper body as he was exiting the train and the train departed Boston’s Broadway Station on April 10, 2022. Investigators believe this is what led to his death that day.

“The railcar passenger doors were designed to become secure in their positions at a train speed of 3 mph or higher,” the NTSB report reads. “When train 1034 accelerated to leave the station, it quickly reached 3 mph, and the doors became secure in their positions, leaving the passenger unable to free himself.”

The report also concluded that the Red Line train’s operator, after an inspection of the platform, pulled her head back inside the train before the pilot lights above the doors had turned off. This contradicts MBTA departure procedures, which require operators to be sure those lights are off before a train departs, as these lights confirm that passenger doors are closed.

NTSB investigators found a 19-foot blind spot in a camera view that included the middle doors of the second railcar. This blocked sight of the door in which Lalin was trapped, so the operator would not have seen him. After the accident, MBTA began conducting twice-daily regular audits of these cameras.

The incident happened on a 1500 series rail car, which featured a passenger door interlock circuit, the report said. The MBTA is expected to retire these trains from service by March 2024.

Lalin’s family previously accused the MBTA of not reaching out since his death to offer condolences, MassLive previously reported. The family said an MBTA spokesperson originally misreported how Lalin died, that he was entering the train and refused to release footage from that night. An MBTA spokesperson told MassLive at the time that the Lalin family’s claim of the false initial report was inaccurate.

“There’s cameras everywhere,” Kelvin Lalin, Robinson’s nephew, said last year. “They have the beginning to the end of my uncle’s tragic death.”

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