A giant industrial drill bit almost bored through a busy New York train yesterday afternoon in what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is calling “a near miss.”
“Oh my God! If it had hit the train, you could forget about it! Of course we are concerned," an MTA supervisor said to the New York Daily News.
“Somebody made a mistake; maybe a surveyor or a field engineer,” he said.
“They drilled into the street, but didn’t realize they were right over the F train tunnel. They weren’t supposed to be in that spot.”
[Sam Costanza/New York Daily News]
The drill, which measures 25cm in diameter, broke through the road and shot down right beside the train. The packed commuter train was carrying 800 passengers at the time.
While the drill did not come in contact with the carriage, the force of cracking through the concrete above was enough to shatter the train’s windows.
MTA-spokesman Kevin Ortiz, describing the drilling accident as being “off the mark,” said: “Obviously this is under investigation, and we’ll take it from there.”
But the near miss has, at least, made for some fantastic tabloid headlines, with The Daily News poking jokes out of it in classic style:
