A specialized plane equipped with advanced sensors that the government deploys to chemical disasters could have helped authorities avoid needlessly blowing open five rail tank cars and burning their toxic contents after the disastrous 2023 East Palestine train derailment, a new report says.

The report released Tuesday found the single-engine Cessna wasn’t called into action until the night before the rail cars filled with vinyl chloride were blown open because officials with the Environmental Protection Agency on the ground didn’t fully understand the aircraft’s sophisticated capabilities.

The report by the EPA’s Inspector General said the agency’s on-scene coordinator mistakenly thought the so-called ASPECT plane could only measure 20- to 30-degree differences in temperature. In reality

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