Passengers of a northbound train that had left Ang Mo Kio MRT station on Monday (11 March) at around 7.30 pm were startled as the train left the station with its door wide open.
A passenger, Hady Matyyn, who happened to be inside the train and posted the video of the incident.
“Was on the train and this happened, luckily nobody was hurt, do something about this, SMRT,” he wrote on his post.
Was on the train and this happened,luckily nobody was hurt,do something about this @SMRT_Singapore pic.twitter.com/QrvHGR9C6n
— Hady Matynn (@Hady_Matynn) March 11, 2019
The station manager can be seen in the video, handling a train door fault while in the train when it moved off with the door open.
Speaking to the media, vice-president of SMRT corporate communications Margaret Teo said that in-train announcements were made to tell commuters to keep clear of the door area and hold on to grip poles.
She then noted that the train stopped shortly after travelling around 200m and returned to Ang Mo Kio station, where all commuters disembarked safely.
According to MS Teo, initial investigations showed that the station manager had made an error that allowed the train to move with a door still open.
She then noted that the company has suspended the station manager with immediate effect.
“Safety is our top priority. We are sorry that this incident happened,” she added.
In the same day, train commuters along East West Line (EWL) experienced more than two hours delay which was caused by Platform Screen Door (PSD) fault at the Lakeside Station for the East Bound trains.
SMRT announced an official information about the delay on its Tweeter platform about an hour later after the delay occurred, while passengers started to complain on Tweeter since 4:12 pm.
Similar incident happened in 2016 when an LRT train door opened while it was travelling from Bukit Panjang to Senja, amid a five-hour service disruption.
The company said at that time that the cause could have been a design flaw and a signalling fault during commuting hours forced SMRT staff to override the driverless Bukit Panjang LRT system and drive the trains manually.
