A Nightmare on the A Line
The horrific death of Yaw Boahene on Monday evening is every subway rider’s worst nightmare. This 57-year-old man was dragged by a 410-ton train after getting caught on an A train car at Utica Avenue. He was unsteady and using a cane when he exited, and now we are left asking how a basic safety check failed so badly.
This isn’t just a random accident; it highlights a specific, old-school failsafe that the MTA relies on every single day. When sensors can’t see the gap, human eyes are supposed to be the last line of defense. If that check didn’t happen, or wasn’t done right, we have a massive problem.
What We Know So Far
According to reporting from Gothamist and amNewYork, MTA officials are still trying to piece together exactly what happened. MTA New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow told the board on September 30 that the details remain murky. “It’s unclear at this point how he came into contact with the train,” Crichlow said. “Did he stumble? Did the bag get caught? Did the cane get caught? Did he step in between the gap? That we’re unsure [about].”
Initial police reports suggested a blue plastic bag got caught in the door, but MTA Chair Janno Lieber pushed back on that theory. “There was nothing attached to this man that got stuck in the car,” Lieber said. “He was carrying this blue plastic bag, and people have surmised that that may have become entangled. But…so far we don’t have any proof of that.”
Despite the confusion, the rules for conductors are crystal clear. The 2020 MTA training book states that once doors open, the conductor must stick their head out to look in both directions. The manual requires them to wait until they know “from careful observation that all doors are abreast of the station platform.” The doors must stay open for at least 10 seconds. If a conductor skips this, “Failure to comply with this division constitutes, of itself, a reason for charges of misconduct and incompetence.”
Both the conductor and the train operator have been removed from service pending the outcome of two investigations. The MTA has video of Boahene getting on and off, but there was no direct camera view outside the door where he exited, leaving a blind spot in the evidence.
The Human Failsafe Is Broken
Here is the hard truth: we trust machines, but we should never trust them blindly. The MTA puts its faith in door sensors, but those sensors only check if the doors are closed, not if a human is hanging onto them. That is why the conductor’s head check exists. It is the final, critical step to ensure no one is left behind.
If Boahene was dragged, it means someone looked out that window and saw nothing wrong, or they didn’t look at all. That is a failure of the most basic kind. We are talking about a protocol that has been written in stone for years. “The conductor has the responsibility of observing the platform,” Crichlow noted during the board meeting. When that responsibility is ignored, people die.
This tragedy strikes at the heart of how we run this city. We are a donor state sending billions to Washington while our own transit system gets shorted. Janno Lieber warned that proposed federal cuts could slash $250 million in funding, which would only make safety worse.
