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

By JOSH FUNK
AP Business Writer

The head of the National Transportation Safety Board told Congress Wednesday that the decision to blow open five tank cars and burn the toxic chemical inside them three days after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in Eastern Ohio last year wasn’t justified. But NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said the key decision-makers who feared those tank cars were going to explode never had all the information they needed. The opinion of the experts at Oxy Vinyls that no dangerous chemical reaction was happening inside the vinyl chloride cars was never relayed to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and the first responders in charge.