Photo by Adam Gerard.

WMATA released a report today detailing what the cause of the Metro train derailment on August 6th was and, well, it does not look good for the transit agency.

According to the technical incident report, which was will be the subject of a special Board of Directors Safety Committee Meeting on September 3rd, human error and gaps in Metro processes are the root cause of the derailment, which didn’t cause any injuries, but made commuting a nightmare for riders that week.

The report says that the cause of the derailment was “failed rail fasteners—the metal pieces that hold the track in place.” The report also found that “the wide gauge condition of the track at the point of derailment” was also a contributing factor, highlighting that this problem detected on July 9th, but that a Metro employee “mistakenly deleted” it from an exception report.

Metro says that the Metro employee responsible for the mistaken deletion has resigned and that another supervisor has also resigned because of the incident. Metro adds that more employees could face disciplinary actions at the discretion of Interim General Manager Jack Requa after the September 3rd meeting.

“While the employee believed he was deleting a routinely detected anomaly and not an actual rail defect, that such a serious error went undetected with no checks and balances in place reveals gaps in Metro’s safety policies and procedures,” Safety Committee Chairman Michael Goldman said in a statement.

In addition to this report, September 3rd’s meeting will also give Metro staff a chance to discuss the actions that taken since the derailment as well as the status of the full investigation of the incident, which is being conducted by the Safety Department.