Airport Authority faces heat over train-gap incident

Wallis Wang

The Airport Authority is facing allegations of failing to report an incident in which a young girl nearly fell onto the track while boarding the automated people mover system at Hong Kong International Airport.

Surveillance footage circulating online shows the girl, believed to be five or six years old and who is not being held by anybody, missing her step and falling into the gap between the train and the platform.

She manages to stabilize herself by pressing against the floor, preventing a plunge onto the tracks. Her adult companions and other passengers quickly pull her back, averting a potential tragedy.

The incident, believed to have occurred late last year, is one of three that the Airport Authority allegedly "covered up," according to Gary Zhang Xinyu, a lawmaker with New Prospect for Hong Kong.

He plans to address the issue - which he said was "extremely dangerous" - in the Legislative Council.

Zhang said the girl was around five to six years old, not a toddler.

He urged authorities to review the platform's safety design, including the possibility of adding fillers to close the gap.

Zhang said serious consequences could have resulted had she fallen completely onto the tracks.

"The power supply system for the airport's automated people mover is located near the tracks, posing a severe risk of electric shock if a person falls," he said.

"Moreover, if she hadn't been pulled back, the automatic system could have caused the train to close its doors and move, potentially leading to a collision."

According to the Airport Authority (Automated People Mover) (Safety) Regulation, such incidents should be reported to the government, yet this case was omitted from the authority's accident investigation report.

"It's concerning that this accident went unrecorded and unreported, leaving the government unaware of the details," Zhang said. "While one might understand if airport staff missed a sudden incident, the fact that it was captured on CCTV suggests that someone must have been aware."

He criticized the apparent gaps in the authority's management and accident-reporting mechanisms, suggesting possible cover-up attempts, and called for a government investigation.

Initially, the Airport Authority denied that the incident occurred, stating it had no record of such an event. But it later acknowledged receiving an investigation request from the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department in January.

The investigation did not yield results, as the CCTV footage from November had not been saved.

"Recently, video clips purportedly capturing the incident showed that a child may have fallen while entering the carriage, but the footage could not confirm whether any part of the child's body fell into the gap between the train and the platform," the authority said yesterday.

Still, the authority pledged to relaunch the investigation based on the available footage and to submit a report to the EMSD within a month.

It added that the gap between the train and the platform involved in the incident has been narrowed to 7.1 centimeters to 10.1cm from the original 13.1cm to 14.1cm.

Two other incidents involving the automated people mover included a spark that erupted from the train this summer and a malfunction of a railroad switch earlier this year.

Zhang clarified that while sparks may occur from metal components making contact with energized tracks, these incidents did not lead to power tripping or affect rail operations, indicating that they did not pose a safety risk.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com