A Spokane Transit Authority double-decker bus crashed into a railroad viaduct after being rerouted by onboard navigation software onto a street with insufficient clearance, hospitalizing 7 of 10 people aboard.
On a Sunday in Spokane, Washington, a Spokane Transit Authority double-decker bus crashed into the Cedar Street railroad viaduct after being rerouted by the onboard navigation software (referred to as 'CAD maps'). The 37,000-pound, 13.5-foot-tall bus struck the 12.5-foot-tall viaduct, shearing off the top foot of the roof and continuing forward another 6 feet before stopping. Of the 10 people on board (9 passengers and 1 driver), 7 were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. The incident occurred during a service change period and coincided with navigation system issues. Approximately 3.5 hours after the crash, STA sent warnings to other drivers not to use the CAD maps for routing. The double-decker buses, introduced just 4 months earlier in September, were specifically designed to operate on Route 6 and 66 between Cheney and Spokane, with the route modified to use Jefferson Street which has adequate clearance. The buses cost approximately $1.4 million each and were part of STA's fleet expansion to serve Eastern Washington University traffic.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed