Remarks as prepared for delivery.

​It’s June 10th, 1999: thirty years since the NTSB first warned about the devastating effects of delay in shutting down failed pipelines and the need for urgent action to install automatic or remote-controlled shutoff valves to stop the flow of oil or gas following a release. 

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

A 16-inch-diameter pipeline owned and operated by Olympic Pipe Line Company ruptures, releasing 237,000 gallons of gasoline over an hour and a half into a creek that flows through Whatcom Falls Park.

No one could have 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 p.m., 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, an employee of Olympic Pipe Line who happens to be in the area also calls 911 and Olympic’s control room in Renton to make sure they’re aware of the situation.

At the same time, the fire department is contacting Olympic to let them know there’s a significant amount of gasoline in the water and fumes have enveloped the city of Bellingham. 

It isn’t until 4:46 — a full hour and 19 minutes after the rupture occurred — that Olympic shuts down the pipeline. 

By then, it’s too late. 

The broken pipeline has been spewing 7,000 gallons of gasoline a minute into Whatcom Creek, which is now gushing down the forested canyon toward downtown Bellingham. 

​​At about 5:02 p.m., the gasoline ignites, generating a massive fireball that travels over a mile and a half down the creek corridor, causing extensive damage and a plume of smoke 30,000 feet in the air that was visible from Vancouver, British Columbia. 

Witnesses report that it sounded “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. 

One teenager, who’s flyfishing, is overcome by fumes, loses consciousness, and drowns. 

Two other children survive the initial blast but suffer second- and third-degree burns over 90% of their bodies and die the next day. 

They were just 10 years old. 

* * *

It’s January 6th, 2005: thirty-six years since the NTSB first recommended that railroads install Positive Train Control to automatically stop a train from colliding head-on with another train and moving through work zones or switches that are left in the wrong position.

It’s 2:39 a.m. in Graniteville, South Carolina. 

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; the previous crew forgot to reline it for the mainline track, 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. 

So 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; many 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. They withdraw and call in a hazmat team.

Ultimately, nine people die from chlorine gas inhalation as a result of the accident: 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. Over 5,000 others are evacuated.

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

The problem is: gaseous chlorine is two-and-a-half times heavier than air; it settles on the ground.

That’s where Chris died. 

* * *

It’s September 2nd, 2019: sixteen years since the NTSB first recommended that marine passenger vessel operators implement a safety management system (SMS). It’s also 11 years since the NTSB first warned about the hazards of transporting lithium-ion batteries. 

It’s 3:14 a.m. The U.S. Coast Guard receives a distress call from the Conception, a small passenger vessel 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 scuba diving on Labor Day Weekend.

Five crewmembers are asleep in their bunks on the upper deck. One of them is awakened by a noise and gets up to investigate.   

He sees a “glow” outside and then fire rising from the main deck. He knows 34 people are asleep in the bunkroom below the main deck. 

He alerts his fellow crewmembers. 

The captain makes a distress call to the Coast Guard. The 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 — 33 passengers and 1 crewmember — perish.    

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 led to 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 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 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. I wanted to see how difficult it would be to escape a fire. 

One of the family members stood up and asked, “Do you think my son could have escaped?”

It was heartbreaking. 

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

No parent — no one — should ever have to hear that. 

* * *

The fact is, our investigations — like those of the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) — are just the first step. Our shared missions don’t end with determining how an accident occurred. We have a duty to the public to ensure it never happens again. 

From the AAIB, our counterparts in aviation in the UK: “Our purpose is to improve aviation safety by determining the circumstances and causes of air accidents and serious incidents and promoting action to prevent reoccurrence.”

Promoting action to prevent reoccurrence. 

That brings me to what I want to focus on tonight… why we’re here, why we do what we do at the NTSB … why I’m so passionate about safety … why we’re — collectively — so passionate about safety … why promoting action… fighting for safety… is so critical in everything… everything we do. 

Their names are Liam, Wade, and Stephen: the three children killed in the Bellingham pipeline rupture. 

Their names are Chris, Steven, Tony, Allen, John, "Rusty," Willie Charles, Joseph, and Willie Lee — the victims of the Graniteville train collision.

Their names are J.P., Patricia, Neal, Marybeth, Charlie, Kendra, Raymond, Justin, Lisa, Kristy, Yuko, Vaidehi, Adrian, Andrew, Yulia, Dan, Allie, Jang, Sunil, Carrie, Kristian, Kaustubh, Sanjeeri, Steve, Diana, Tia, Berenice, Evan, Angela, Michael, Fernisa, Nicole, Ted, and Wei — all of whom perished aboard the Conception. 

But there are so many others whose names don’t make headlines, who no longer have a voice to fight for safety, who are counting on every single person in this room to be their voice to fight for safety… one voice that can be the catalyst for change or, perhaps, inspire an entire movement. 

Admittedly, fighting for safety, fighting for change can be tough, frustrating, heart-wrenching, especially when you feel like no one’s listening. You aren’t being heard. You feel like you’re getting nowhere. 

In those moments, we — at the NTSB — take a moment to celebrate the successes.

It’s June 27th, 2022: twenty-four years since the NTSB first recommended eliminating passive rail grade crossings. 

At 12:42 p.m., an Amtrak train derails after hitting a dump truck that’s blocking a grade crossing in Mendon, Missouri. ​

Three passengers and the truck driver are killed; 146 passengers and crewmembers are injured. 

The track is owned by BNSF Railway and the crossing has no gates or lights; only crossbucks and a stop sign at the bottom of the hill leading up to the crossing. 

It would have been easy to say, “Well, the truck shouldn’t have been on the tracks.” Open and shut case. Go home.

Except, when I arrived on scene, I heard police officers talking about a local farmer named Mike Spencer, who had launched a social media campaign to get BNSF and state and county officials to take action. 

I asked one of the police officers if they could call Mike Spencer and see if he’d talk to me. He agreed.

That morning, I drove to his farm and sat down with him in his barn. He told me how unsafe the crossing is, that he was concerned for his daughter’s safety. 

Mike owns land on both sides of the tracks and when he crosses them in his combine, he has to stand up as he’s driving up the hill and look backwards (due to the angle of the crossing), beyond a line of trees, to catch a glimpse of an oncoming train, which isn’t easy. 

He said numerous people had almost gotten hit and that he had met with BNSF, the state, and the county for years. To no avail. 

After our meeting, I met with the county commissioners. They told me about other crossings in the county with similar safety concerns. They also shared that they had very few resources to pay for required environmental reviews. 

It was clear that everyone involved was fed up, rightfully, with “Big Government” and the bureaucracy, so I asked if they’d attend a meeting later that evening. 

They agreed.

At my 4:00 p.m. press conference, I announced that I wasn’t leaving until there was a plan in place to fix the crossing. I mentioned my meeting with Mike Spencer and said that, at 5:00 p.m., I was meeting with the county commissioners, the Missouri Department of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, BNSF, Amtrak, and others to find a path forward. 

Current law allowed the State to use up to 100% of federal grade crossing funding to make safety improvements. In that meeting, they did agree on a path forward with assistance offered by all parties. 

A year later, we issued the final report. 

We determined that the crossing failed to meet existing design standards, but we didn’t issue a single recommendation.

We didn’t need to because Governor Parsons heard Mike Spencer and took action. He worked with BNSF to close the crossing and invested $50 million to fix 49 other crossings along that same corridor.

I mentioned Bellingham, Graniteville, and the Conception earlier. Now Mendon. Because, out of each of these tragedies, family members, friends, entire communities came together to fight for change, fight for safety , to prevent the next tragedy, to save lives.  

And in each case, that change didn’t start with a crowd. 

It started with one person, like Mike Spencer and one decision: the decision to care… to speak up … to listen … to act … and the belief that what you do — what you can do — matters. 

That one person could be you. 

Or you. 

You.

Because, when you choose to make a difference, choose to fight for safety in all that you do, no matter the cost, you don’t just change someone else’s life, you change the world.

It’s May 3rd, 1980. Thirteen-year-old Cari Lightner is walking along a quiet road in Fair Oaks, California, on her way to a church carnival when a car swerves out of control, striking and killing her. 

The driver of the vehicle, Clarence Busch, leaves the scene, leaving Cari to die in the arms of her friend. 

Meanwhile, Clarence continues home and blacks out from drinking. This isn’t his first offense. He’s had three prior convictions for drunk driving in California and was just released from jail and out on bail that morning for another hit-and-run drunk driving crash. 

Shortly after his release from his conviction in Cari’s death, he hit another girl, a 19-year-old also named Carrie, while drinking and driving. He had a BAC of .20, which was twice the legal limit in California at the time.

Just four days after the death of her daughter, Candace Lightner founded an organization that — to this day — is the most influential force against impaired driving: Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). 

Because of her efforts, states increased penalties for repeat offenders, raised the minimum drinking age to 21, and lowered the nation’s legal BAC from 0.10 to 0.08. 

Candace took fighting for safety to heart. Her advocacy led to the successful passage of more than 700 bills at the state and national levels. She testified before Congress and state legislatures, formed coalitions, and served on a Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving. 

Candace chose to make a difference. And with that one decision — to care — she changed the world.

At the time of her daughter’s death, 27,000 people died annually of drunk driving in the U.S. Today, we stand at about 13,000 annually. MADD has saved thousands of lives. 

Still, Candace’s work is far from done. Thirty-seven people die every single day in a drunk driving crash on U.S. roads. In the UK, about 260 people die each year in alcohol-impaired driving crashes; the number soars to nearly 1900 when you include serious injuries.

At NTSB we’re fighting for zero. 

We’re fighting for the nine people who died five Januarys ago in Avenal, California, in a horrific drunk driving crash. Seven of the victims were children. The oldest was 15 and the youngest was just 6 years old.

We’re fighting for the 1.19 million people who die annually from road traffic crashes across the globe. 

We’re fighting for the 376 who die annually in U.S. aviation accidents; the 926 people who die in rail; the 616 people who die in maritime; and the 12 people who die in pipeline ruptures. And so many more — millions more — who are injured. 

That is who the NTSB is fighting for. We will not stop until we get to zero.

Now, I recognize plenty of people think zero deaths is an unrealistic goal. 

What about you? 

Who thinks we’ll never see a day with zero transportation deaths? 

Every time I ask that question, no one wants to put their hand up. I understand.

Then think about a good goal. Should we aim to cut transportation deaths by 25%? How about 50%? By when? 

Keep that goal in mind. 

Now, let me ask you this: what’s an acceptable percentage of transportation deaths in YOUR family? 

What’s an acceptable number of empty seats at your dinner table? 

Zero. 

Zero just became real, didn’t it?

There’s no acceptable amount of injury or death when it’s our colleague. Our best friend. Our partner. Our parent. Our son. Our daughter. 

It shouldn’t be acceptable for anyone else.

That’s what drives everyone at the NTSB and I know that’s what drives many of you. 

Look around this room. To your left. To your right. 

You’re looking at the heartbeat of aviation. You are a leader in safety. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. 

Some of you have the power to take action; all of you have a voice. I encourage you to use it because you are how we get to zero. 

Now, getting to zero isn’t easy. We need everyone in this fight.

But we also need something else — something less tangible.

We need to be fearless: unafraid to open our hearts to the preventable pain of transportation disasters and to fearlessly, passionately, unrelentingly pursue safety solutions.

Fearless in shaping policy, standards, and innovation, knowing that progress often requires persistence across institutions and disciplines.

Fearless in designing systems that anticipate failure rather than reacting to it. 

Fearless in shaping decisions that prevent accident sequences long before they ever begin.

Fearless in speaking up when evidence points to risk again and again and again until it’s understood and acted on. 

Until we turn lessons learned into lives saved.

And for all the journalists out there: fearless in holding everyone … everyone …accountable for action. 

And while those contributions are rarely, if ever, seen, every safe flight, every resilient system, every advancement in knowledge and practice is a testament to your impact — felt not just in moments, but across entire generations.

Parents … spouses … children … friends … colleagues … neighbors … who return safely to their communities, their loved ones. 

That’s why I told you stories tonight — true stories. 

That’s why I talked to you today about people I’m fighting for … we’re fighting for … at the NTSB.

Here’s one last story.

It’s 8:48 p.m. on January 29, 2025, here in the nation’s capital. 

A Black Hawk operated by the U.S. Army under the callsign PAT25 collides with a CRJ operated by PSA Airlines as American Airlines flight 5342 near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). 

Two pilots, two flight attendants, and 60 passengers onboard the plane and all three crew members onboard the helicopter die in what is clearly a preventable tragedy.

I received a letter from a young man, Ben, whose fiancé had died on the plane. Frankly, it’s the most beautiful letter I’ve ever received. 

With his permission, I’d like to share what he wrote:

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 to 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

“On January 29, sixty-seven universes were permanently torn apart.” Sixty-seven universes came crashing down in a second. 

The families of those who died that night fought desperately to understand what happened. 

They continue to fight unselfishly to prevent it from happening again. Fight courageously through what I can only imagine is tremendous pain to make sure no one else loses their life … fight so damn hard to prevent another family from having to endure the heart wrenching loss they must feel every single moment of every single day. Day after day, after day, after day.

In the midst of devastating tragedy — the worst moment of their lives — they fight for safety. 

If they can do it, so can I. 

And so can you.

It’s been 505 days since the midair collision occurred. And 142 days since we adopted our final report. 

There’s been no action. 

I hope there is. I implore decisionmakers to take action. 

Don’t let another day go by. 

Because people died. And more will die if we fail to act in this moment. 

Before you leave this room, I encourage you to think of one thing you can do to help, starting today, to fight for those families … fight for safety… to promote action to prevent reoccurrence.

Don’t do it for me. 

Do it for Liam, Stephen, and Wade — three kids who just wanted to go fishing or play at the park.

For Chris and eight other people who suffocated in a toxic cloud caused by a preventable rail disaster.

For 34 people who just wanted to have fun on Labor Day Weekend on a diving trip — 34 people who never made it back home.

Do it for Cari Lightner, who just wanted to go to a church carnival.

For Melissa and 66 others who died tragically on January 29th just a few miles from here. 

 And don’t stop. 

We won’t stop. 

I won’t stop.

Until there’s no longer a need for our safety recommendations. 

Until there’s no longer a need for the NTSB.

Until we have a safe transportation system for all. 

Until there’s zero.

Thank you.​

​