​​Dear Chair Homendy, 

When Melissa and I met, she was 20 and I was 21. I had an intense feeling right away that she would become the most important person in my life – and to my amazement, she did. Over the course of nine years, we did everything together. It still felt like our lives were just beginning. She was the love of my life. She had a gift for making people feel seen, and was the go-to person among her friends – whether they needed guidance, someone to listen, or just a giggle.

I was waiting for her to arrive home at our apartment in Brooklyn from a work trip to the University of Kansas the night she was killed. We lived in DC for four years, and had flown out of DCA countless times. That night, it was just a coincidence she happened to be connecting through there. I was always afraid of flying and she would comfort me when we flew together. This month she would’ve turned 29. I hope this can be a reminder that on January 29, sixty-seven universes were permanently torn apart. The pain of these losses will echo across the rest of our lives.

I also hope that you will seek accountability across the FAA and Army to ensure something like this can never happen again. I hope that you will leave no stone unturned, ask the hard, uncomfortable questions that will ruffle feathers, and let no one, in power or otherwise, obfuscate or delay the truth.

Sincerely, Ben

​​​Remarks as prepared for delivery. 

Ben’s fiancée — Melissa Nicandri — was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 5342. On January 29, 2026, a helicopter operated by the United States Army collided midair with her flight; she died instantly.

Ben gave me his permission to share his words with you and I’m so grateful he did; it’s among the most meaningful letters I’ve ever received.

Allowing his poignant words to be shared publicly… deeply personal sentiments borne from unimaginable sorrow… is a gift… a profound act of generosity. 

But it’s also something else, and that’s what I want to talk about today. 

It’s a call to action — a call to ensure such tragedies never happen again.

That's what Ben and the families of 5342 are pressing for.

That’s what every family we meet under the worst of circumstances demands… it’s what they deserve from an agency that is 100% committed — 24/7/365 — to safety. 

And if you’re in this room, it’s what they demand and deserve from each of you. Because if you’re sitting here, you are a safety leader. 

And leaders are called to act. You are called to act.

Act to prevent future tragedy.

Act to ensure no other family experiences such tremendous loss and heartbreak.

Act to ensure the tragedies we investigate today become lives saved tomorrow. 

That is our collective mission. 

That is our mandate; that is our promise... my promise to you. 

Let me show you what that looks like. 

* * *

June 10, 1999. It’s 3:27 p.m. in Bellingham, Washington. 

A transmission pipeline ruptures, releasing 237,000 gallons of gasoline, over about an hour and a half, into a creek that flows through Whatcom Falls Park.

No one could’ve imagined that — what began as 911 reports from residents and businesses of a strong odor along Whatcom Creek — would become one of the worst onshore pipeline disasters in U.S. history. 

The first 911 call comes in at 4:24, not from the pipeline company, but from a resident who reports that as she was driving across a bridge, she smelled a strong odor that made breathing difficult. 

Three minutes later, another resident calls 911, reports the same odor, and adds that Whatcom Creek is discolored. 

A short time later, that same resident calls back and says his dog is convulsing and he’s evacuating because the odor is overwhelming.

Calls to 911 are now rolling in and the Bellingham Fire Department is on scene. 

No one has heard from the pipeline company.

At 4:30 p.m., an employee of the pipeline company who happens to be in the area also calls 911 and his company’s control room in Renton to make sure they’re aware of the situation. 

At the same time, the fire department is contacting the pipeline company to let them know there’s a significant amount of gasoline in the water and overwhelming fumes are enveloping the city of Bellingham. 

It isn’t until 4:46 p.m.… a full hour and 19 minutes after the rupture occurred… that the operator shuts down the pipeline. 

Think about that: 79 minutes went by before they shut down the pipeline.

By then, it’s too late. 

The broken pipeline has been spewing 7,000 gallons of gasoline a minute down the forested canyon toward downtown Bellingham.

At about 5:02 p.m., the gasoline ignites, creating a massive fireball that travels over a mile and a half down the creek corridor and torches everything in its path. The plume of smoke soars to 30,000 feet, visible from Vancouver, British Columbia. 

Witnesses report it sounds “like a jet plane flying through the creek bed” and that “it was like an atomic bomb mushroom cloud rising up over the city.”

Tragically, three children are killed. 

Liam, a teenager, is flyfishing; he’s overcome by fumes, loses consciousness, and drowns. 

Two other children, Wade and Stephen, survive the initial blast but suffer second- and third-degree burns over 90% of their bodies and die the next day; they’re just 10 years old.  

The Bellingham tragedy occurred 30 years after the NTSB first warned about the devastating effects of delay in shutting down failed pipelines. 

Thirty years. 

You know what prompted the first recommendation? 

A pipeline explosion that occurred in Hapeville, Georgia, that killed nine people in a daycare center, including seven children. Three other children were seriously injured.

That was 1968; Bellingham, 1999. 

It wasn’t until 2006 that the recommendations from Bellingham were fully implemented.

But guess what? We’re still working to implement our recommendations to pipeline operators to rapidly shut down failed pipelines, nearly 60 years later.  

* * *

Let’s go to Graniteville, South Carolina. It’s 2:39 a.m. on January 6, 2005. A Norfolk Southern freight train is traveling about 47 mph along the tracks. 

As it nears the Avondale Mills textile plant, the train encounters a misaligned switch, so it veers off the main track, onto a siding, and plows right into a parked train. 

The collision derails both head-end locomotives and the first 16 cars of the striking train, including three tank cars, each of which contains 90 tons of chlorine. 

One of them is punctured and releases chlorine gas. 

If you don’t know much about hazmat, liquefied chlorine can generate a gaseous cloud with a volume that’s 450 times greater than the volume of the liquid released. 

Within minutes, a large toxic cloud begins to form and extends about 2,500 feet to the north; 1,000 feet to the east; 900 feet to the south; and 1,000 feet to the west. 

Wind is light so it settles in the low areas around the tracks. 

The water in nearby Horse Creek turns into hydrochloric acid. 

Workers at Avondale Mills nearest the crash can’t breathe. They smell the chlorine and feel their eyes and lungs burn. Some are vomiting; a number of them are fleeing. 

Over the next 10 minutes, about a dozen calls are made to 911 with some callers reporting a low-lying yellow haze that smells like bleach. 

Within about an hour, more than 100 additional 911 calls are received. By 6:00 a.m., more than 200 calls. 

Meanwhile, volunteer firefighters are trying desperately to approach the scene but the smell is too intense. They can’t breathe so they withdraw and call in a hazmat team.

Ultimately, nine people die from chlorine gas inhalation: Chris Seeling who was the train’s engineer and whose parents I came to know, six employees of Avondale Mills, one truck driver, and one resident. 

Five-hundred-fifty-four people suffering respiratory difficulties are taken to local hospitals; more than 5,000 others are evacuated.

The conductor, who survived, reported in interviews that he and Chris got out of the locomotive, walked about 100 yards, and laid down. 

The problem is that gaseous chlorine is two-and-a-half times heavier than air. It sinks to the ground. That’s where Chris died.

You know what would’ve prevented this accident? Positive Train Control (PTC).

The NTSB had been recommending PTC for 36 years when Chris died… first in 1969 following a head-on collision of two Penn Central trains, killing four people and injuring another 43. 

Over the next three to four decades, we investigated 154 other PTC-preventable accidents that claimed over 300 lives and injured over 6800 others, many seriously so.

It took another 2 decades to make PTC a reality… 50 years of investigation, advocacy, and persistence from the NTSB. 

In the end, it took an act of Congress. 

Still, there are safety gaps: times when the technology fails, terminal exceptions, switching mode vulnerabilities, and restricted speeds… not to mention dark territory.

But we’re still pushing for implementation of our recommendation to ensure locomotive engineers and conductors have access to emergency escape breathing apparatus onboard trains. 

It’s the law but the railroads are fighting it. 

I made a promise to Chris and his parents, Stephen and Rebecca, that I’d never give up. 

By the way, if you didn’t know him, at the time of his death, Chris was Secretary-Treasurer of BLET Division 85 in Columbia, South Carolina.  

* * *

Fast forward to Labor Day Weekend 2019. It’s 3:14 a.m. 

The U.S. Coast Guard receives a distress call from the Conception, a small passenger vessel, about 75-feet-long, anchored in Platts Harbor on the north side of Santa Cruz Island, not far from Santa Barbara, California.

Aboard the Conception are 33 passengers: A family of five, people celebrating birthdays, high school students, teachers… all pursuing their passion for diving on a Labor Day weekend adventure that comes to a tragic end. 

Five crewmembers are asleep in their bunks on the upper deck; one crewmember and all 33 passengers are asleep in the bunkroom below. 

A crewmember sleeping in the upper deck berth is awakened by a noise and gets up to investigate. He sees a “glow” outside and then fire rising up from the main deck below, so he alerts the four other crewmembers sleeping on the upper deck.

The captain immediately goes for the radio and makes a distress call to the Coast Guard. 

The four other crewmembers jump down from the upper deck to help everyone trapped in the bunkroom but are blocked by fire and overwhelmed by thick smoke. 

As the fire intensifies, all five crewmembers jump overboard. Two swim to the stern and re-board the vessel in hopes of finding survivors. 

Unfortunately, access to the salon through the aft corridor is also blocked by fire, so, along with the captain, they launch the vessel’s skiff and pick up the remaining two crewmembers in the water. 

The crew desperately searches for another vessel nearby where the captain continues to radio for help, while two crewmembers return to the waters around the burning Conception to search for survivors.

Despite intense firefighting and search and rescue efforts, the vessel burns to the waterline and sinks just after daybreak. 

No survivors are found. All 34 people in the bunkroom are dead. 

It’s worth mentioning that there was an emergency exit in the bunkroom. If you could find it in the dark, you had to crawl up three bunks, push out a square hatch, and shimmy up through it one by one. 

But you still wouldn’t have survived because the main exit and the emergency exit ended in the same location: the main deck that was fully ablaze.

The Conception remains the deadliest marine accident in recent U.S. history. It’s also the one that stays with me. 

The first full day that I was on scene we met with the families who lost loved ones in the family assistance center. They knew that I had visited a vessel that morning that was similar to the Conception. 

I wanted to see bunkroom, the main exit, and the emergency exit. And I wanted to see how difficult it would be to escape a fire. 

One of the family members stood up and asked me, do you think my son could have escaped?

I had to be honest; my answer was, “No.”

No one should ever have to hear that.  

 Today, all recommendations from the Conception are implemented but one: safety management systems for small passenger vessel operators, which – at the time of the fire and sinking – we had been recommending for nearly 15 years.

The Coast Guard is still sitting on it, but we’re still pushing for action alongside the Conception families. 

* * *

One more. June 26, 2023: Baltimore, Maryland. 

It’s 3:59 p.m. and a CSX crew consisting of an engineer, conductor trainer, and conductor trainee reports for duty at Seagirt Terminal. 

The crew receives instructions, conducts a job briefing, and begins switching operations. 

Around 8:04 p.m., the crew is shoving railcars around a curve approaching a grade crossing. 

The conductor trainer is on the west side of the lead railcar; the trainee is controlling the shoving movement from the east side. The trainee radios the engineer to stop the train within five railcar lengths. 

As the train slows to a stop, the slack runs out of the railcars. 

The trainer abruptly slips toward the train’s direction of travel, colliding with one of the two vertical handholds that he is standing between, which, along with his grip on both handholds, stops him from falling from the equipment. 

Meanwhile, the conductor trainee’s right foot loses contact with the railcar platform and he slips forward. He loses his balance and falls into the train’s path and dies. 

The trainee’s name was Derek Scott Little, or “DS,” as he was known by family and friends. 

He was just 28 years old and was just days away from marking up for the first time as a certified conductor when he was killed. 

But he’s not alone.

• October 12, 2020: Richmond, Virginia. Ryan Sandy, 37 years old. He left behind his wife, Kate, and five children. “His son, Jasper, wants you to know that even if he had been working all night, he always found time to play trucks and dinosaurs.” That was from his obituary. 
• November 11, 2020: Tuscola, Illinois. Brandon Warnick, 35, was an avid NASCAR fan and loved to draw. “He had an interest in trains at an early age and realized his dream of being an Engineer.” He left behind his mother, Kathy; his brother, John; his sister, Amy; and his dogs Tater Tot and Pork Chop.
• December 23, 2020: Tupelo, Mississippi. Tyrone Davis, 40. Known as “Mr. T” by his co-workers, he left behind a wife and children. 
• March 3, 2021: La Mirada, California. Taj Ellis, 46, was a BNSF Railway conductor fatally injured in Buena Park Yard. He is survived by his wife, Trinity, and their children. 
• October 29, 2021: Houston. Matthew Pfister, 19, had a life-long passion for trains and was known for helping with the annual Christmas Train sponsored by his church. He worked for the railroad for just five months before he was taken, leaving behind his parents John and Brandy… sisters Kennedy and Elizabeth… and grandparents Ken and Karen. 
• August 29, 2022: El Paso, Texas. Mario Navarro, 49. Mario was born on Friday the 13th of April 1973, a fact he loved to share. He “was known by many as having spoken in movie quotes and endless jokes, with a contagious laugh.” He was dedicated, first and foremost, to his wife Monique and children (Matix and Mia), yet described by many as the guy one could count on to be there for anyone at any time.  
• March 7, 2023: Cleveland. Louis Shuster, 46 — President of BLET Division 607 out of Cleveland… one of your own. Brother Lou was an Army veteran, a loving father to Ethan, and the primary caregiver for his parents. He was also an avid gardener who loved to cook. You made sure he was not forgotten. In June of this year, Governor DeWine signed a law championed by BLET to rename the highway overpass between I-480 and 150th Street in Cleveland in Lou’s honor. 
• August 6, 2023: Cumberland, Maryland. Travis Bradley, 40. Travis belonged to the Maryland and West Virginia Model Railroad Association and loved history and visiting battleships. After a long day, his wife Nichole, daughters Layna and Maggie, or stepdaughter Danielle could find him smoking a cigar and sipping bourbon. 
• July 6, 2024: Melrose Park, Illinois. Justin Pender, 27, died on the job at around 1:30 a.m. in Proviso Yard. His passing inspired me to call for action on rail worker safety and draw attention to the rise in train accidents in rail yards. 
• June 9, 2025: Nacogdoches, Texas. Robert “Robbie” Gardner, 43, was a man of deep faith, an Army veteran, and “knew everything about superheroes.” He dearly loved his family, who he called “his girls:” his wife Jennifer and their daughters, Evangeline and Emmalela. 
• June 16, 2025: Fairfield, Alabama. Micheal Townsend, 39. A father of four, his death “marks a second devastating loss for his children, who also lost their mother to illness” not long after the accident, according to local news reports. 
• December 3, 2025: Ontario, California. Steven Crowe Jr., 46, followed in his father’s footsteps as a railroader. Because his dad’s reputation preceded him, he was given a number of affectionate nicknames: Baby Crowe… Birdie… and Brother Steve. “He lived with humor, heart, purpose, and an unshakeable loyalty to his brothers and sisters on and off the rails,” according to one tribute. He leaves behind his wife Theresa and their three children: Dylan, Braeden, and Makensie. 
• December 13, 2025: Calera, Alabama. Charles Harrison, 52, was a conductor for CSX Transportation and dedicated union member. 
  

I could go on and on and on.

• ​October 19, 2025, Daniel Peterson, Columbus, Montana.
• February 23, 2026, Jeremy Charles, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
• July 9, 2026, Scott Shoemaker, Whiting, Indiana.
• September 3, 2026, Moet McCullam, Bronx, New York.
• September 21, 2026, Mark Tharp, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
  

Rail workers are dying! 

In fact, since 2020, 54 rail workers have lost their lives on the job. Nearly 19,000 others were injured. 19,000 injuries!

These aren’t just numbers. Behind every statistic is a person: a parent, a spouse, a brother, a sister, a child, a friend. 

Every one of these losses changes a family and a community forever. 

Some will say 2025 was the safest year on record… that the rate of employees killed or injured on the job was lower. 

I say, rates don’t erase loss! 

Telling a family whose loved one is missing from their dinner table that it’s safer is no consolation.  

Telling them it’s safer is no comfort when birthdays, graduations, and holidays… life’s most precious moments… are replaced with heartache and sorrow.

When tragedy strikes, the script is all too familiar: “well, so-and-so wasn’t following our operating rules.” That’s B.S.!

Blaming the worker is easy. The harder — and more important — question is why one human mistake stood between a routine shift and a funeral.

You don’t get to build, operate, and maintain a system that demands perfection, strip away its safeguards (training and inspections, to name a few), and then act surprised when a human being turns out to be human… and then turn around and say the answer is to get rid of the human. No!

The problem isn’t the human; it isn’t a broken rule. 

It’s a culture that treats safety as an expense, workers as expendable, and accountability as something that only rolls downhill. And when something goes wrong, blame the person who paid the highest price.

Well, Derek Scott Little paid that price. He should never have died on June 26, 2023. He should have gone home that night to his fiancée. He should have been there for the birth of his son, Logan, just two weeks later. 

We found in our investigation that Derek complied with CSX’s operating rules, but CSX didn’t provide him with adequate protection against the risk of slipping (he was forced to stand on a handhold) or sufficient training on how to ride intermodal railcars.   

Insufficient training. We see it a lot at the NTSB. 

When the same failures appear again and again, they aren’t simply findings in a report; they are warnings.

And if we don’t act on those warnings, we know what will happen next.

That’s why the safety recommendations we issue at the end of our investigations are so critical.

Today, there are more than 400 open safety recommendations we issued to the Federal Railroad Administration, Class I railroads, and Amtrak; meaning they’re awaiting action… 400 safety recommendations with no action!

Forty percent of our recommendations to the FRA were designated by the Board as “unacceptable” action. That’s on top of the 132 recommendations we closed, also citing unacceptable action. 

Combined, the Class I freight railroads have 101 open recommendations. Closed – unacceptable? 293.

 Amtrak has 11 open and 22 closed – unacceptable.  

Every open recommendation is a life we already know how to save — sitting on a desk, waiting on a signature, buried in a process.

Every "closed unacceptable" recommendation is us saying, on the record: people will die if you don't act.

And too often? Silence. Delay. A study. A promise to "take it under advisement."

Think of the message that sends to the families. Think of the message that sends to your families.

It has to stop.

The gap between a recommendation and its implementation isn't measured in time, and it sure as hell can’t be measured in cost. 

It's measured in people... the names I shared earlier. 

How many more Dereks? How many more Chrises? How many more people in a family assistance center after a horrific tragedy asking me if their loved one ever had a chance?

I am DONE reading names. You are DONE burying your brothers and sisters.

We need action!

Don't let our safety recommendations collect dust. Pick them up. Carry them. 

Put them in front of every regulator, every carrier, every member of Congress who will listen — and the ones who won't.

Because safety doesn’t improve on its own. 

It improves when we unite… when workers refuse to be silenced. When families refuse to be ignored. When the NTSB refuses to back down. When we stand together… for safety.   

A moment of silence is not enough to honor the brothers and sisters who never came home.

A plaque is not enough.

A renamed bridge is not enough.

The only worthy tribute is change. Real change. Measurable change.

Change that reaches the yard, the cab, the main line, the training room, the dispatch center, the rulebook, the bargaining table, the boardroom, and the halls of government, including the halls of the NTSB.

And until that change happens, we keep pushing.

We keep demanding. 

And that’s what I want to come back to.  

I mentioned all these tragedies because we don’t stop fighting for action. 

Ben in his letter rightfully demanded it. 

The families of flight 5342 rightfully demanded it; they’ve continued to demand action in the 623 days since the tragedy at DCA occurred. They’re still waiting. 

Mark mentioned that I was a card-carrying member of Teamsters Local 70. 

I know all too well the struggles of working families, like mine and yours. 

I know the importance of safety… of fighting for change and never giving up.

I also know how hard it is to fight for safety change.

But you can’t give up.

We have a saying in the labor movement, one I often return to: Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

Say it with me: Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

Say it again: Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.

We owe it to the victims: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

We owe it to the families who continue to grieve their loss: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

We owe it to the millions of people who rely on the safety of our transportation system every day: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

We owe it to every BLET member who deserves to return home safely to their loved ones: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

We owe it to Liam, Wade, and Stephen, three kids who just wanted to go flyfishing or play at a Bellingham park: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

We owe it to Chris and eight other people who suffocated in a toxic cloud caused by a preventable rail disaster in Graniteville, South Carolina: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

We owe it to the 34 people taking a diving trip on board the Conception… 34 people who never made it back home: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.  

We owe it to Melissa and 66 others who died in a midair collision over the Potomac River: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living. 

We owe it to Derek and every worker who builds, operates, and maintains our nation’s rail system: To mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.

And never give up… never, ever give up. 

Because we won’t.

I won’t. 

Until there’s zero. 

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