NBC Bay Area has learned that Wednesday's 20-minute mid-morning BART shutdown was caused when a system controller in its underground Operations Control Center in Oakland inadvertently triggered a disaster training scenario.
The glitch meant the entire BART system was shut down, as called for in a major disaster. Some trains operated on backup power, but other trains were ordered to turn back as officials scrambled to restore the system to normal.
"There was an emergency shutdown training scenario -- that is normally triggered during off hours -- that was inadvertently activated," BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby said. "One of the system operators in the operations control center typed in a command -- it was a mistake."
The issue was first reported at 10:20 a.m., and by 10:45 a.m., BART reported 20-minute residual delays.
Huckaby said BART is changing its protocols to avoid such mishaps in the future.
"They are changing the protocol so they cannot run that scenario without a two-person confirmation," Huckaby said.
Under the new protocol, a managers has to be present on the activation.
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"The trains went down and everything went as expected when that command is issued. Then the restore power protocols kicked in, power was restored and we got trains moving fairly quickly," Huckaby said.
