Despite their private engineers' warnings that track brakes were necessary on the Angels Flight cable cars, city redevelopment officials allowed the builders to alter the design in 1995 to eliminate those brakes and other safety features from the funicular system, city records show.
Construction documents show that officials of the Community Redevelopment Agency, who were responsible for the project, allowed changes in the design that deviated in significant ways from the specifications set by the agency's private engineering consultants, Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc.
"The submitted documents show evidence that the proposed design is not in compliance with the required scope of work as related to the safety of the system," the consultants wrote in a letter to the CRA's private project management contractor on Jan. 22, 1996, a month before the funicular reopened on Feb. 24.
Some experts say that if Angels Flight had a track braking system, it could have reduced the chances of injuries in an accident such as the one a month ago today in which one person was killed and seven injured.
"Some sort of track braking system could have decelerated the car and minimized the force of the impact," said USC civil engineering professor Najmedin Meshkati, who studied many of the documents for The Times. "If the track brake was coupled with some other mechanism such as a tail hook, it might have been able to stop it."
An executive for the now-defunct firm that designed the funicular's motor drive system defended the lack of an emergency track brake. "It was a safe system," said Michael Stephenson of Yantrak, which was based in Carson City, Nev. He declined to elaborate.
Christopher Bisgaard, a private attorney hired by the CRA to investigate the accident, said the agency is withholding detailed comment until it completes its own investigation.
"The CRA believes it acted reasonably," Bisgaard said regarding the construction project.
Ongoing Probe of Fatal Accident
On Feb. 1, an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor from New Jersey was killed, and his wife and six others were injured when one of the funicular's two cable cars hurtled down the steep track and collided with its twin. Federal investigators found that cable had unraveled from one of the system's two drums, and they are seeking to determine why.
