Possible Cause for Monorail Accident

Some folks who know the DisneyWorld monorail system fairly well have come up with a possible explanation for the accident which killed a 21-year old driver:

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident, and it appears that the federal agency will have much to criticize in its report. Not only does there appear to have been operational failures by monorail personnel, leading to the accident, but also Disney’s monorail system design was fatally flawed.

The accident appears to have happened because Monorail Pink, which was to have transferred to another monorail beam, did not make the track switch, and instead proceeded backward down the Epcot line, back into the station where it collided with Monorail Purple, killing driver Austin Wuennenberg. Apparently, the monorails’ automatic collision avoidance system was switched off during the track switch.

And that is the design flaw.

If that's true, this is going to be a very expensive problem for Disney.

There's a nice video tribute to the fallen monorail pilot here.