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Committee of Inquiry appointed for train breakdowns

A tri-partite committee has been appointed by the Ministry of Transport to conduct an inquiry that was previously called for into the two recent MRT train breakdowns.
 
This will be headed by chief district judge of Singapore’s subordinate courts Tan Siong Thye, who said he will do his best to fulfill some seven terms of reference by which his committee is to conduct their investigation by.
 
These, as reflected in a statement released by the ministry on Thursday, include establishing the cause(s), “and any other contributory factors for the two incidents, including factors that may have endangered public safety”, making recommendations to minimise the occurrence of future incidents and to improve the management of these incidents.
 
“As a daily user of the MRT myself to and from work for more than 10 years, I share the concerns of many who want to know what went wrong and how to restore confidence in our MRT system,” said Tan.
 
“My immediate priority in the next few weeks will be focused on fact-finding and speaking to relevant experts,” he added, saying that the committee will take a “comprehensive and systems approach” to understanding the underlying causes of the breakdown, and propose necessary improvements.
 
Tan will be assisted by Nanyang Technological University aerospace and mechanical engineering professor Lim Mong King and director of prisons Soh Wai Wah.

Lim previously served on two committees of inquiry appointed by the ministries of manpower in 1993 and 1998 to investigate fire incidents in shipyards, while Soh was deployed for various major disasters including the Hotel New World collapse, the SQ117 hijack and the Nicoll Highway collapse.