US investigators: Amtrak train in deadly wreck was speeding

[webfact]

Investigators: US train in deadly wreck was speeding
GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A passenger train that crashed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven people, was speeding at 106 mph (170 kph) before it ran off the rails along a sharp curve where the speed limit is just 50 mph (80 kph), federal investigators said Wednesday.

The Amtrak engineer at the controls applied the emergency brakes moments before the deadly crash but managed to slow the train to only 102 mph (164 kph) when the locomotive's black box stopped recording data, said Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board. The speed limit just ahead of the bend is 80 mph (130 kph), he said.

The engineer, who name was not released, refused to give a statement to law enforcement Wednesday and left a police precinct with a lawyer. Sumwalt said federal accident investigators hope to interview him but will give him a day or two to recover from the "traumatic event."

"There's no way in the world that he should have been going that fast into the curve," Mayor Michael Nutter told CNN. "Clearly he was reckless and irresponsible in his actions. I don't know what was going on with him, I don't know what was going on in the cab, but there's really no excuse that could be offered."

More than 200 people aboard the Washington-to-New York train were injured in the wreck, which took place in a decayed industrial neighborhood not far from the Delaware River shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday. It was the nation's deadliest train accident in nearly seven years.

"We are heartbroken by what has happened here," Mayor Michael Nutter said.

Amtrak suspended all service until further notice along the Philadelphia-to-New York stretch of the busiest U.S. rail corridor — forcing thousands of travelers to find some other way to reach their destination — as investigators examined the wreckage and the tracks and gathered up other evidence. Amtrak carries 11.6 million passengers a year along its busy Northeast Corridor, which runs between Washington and Boston.

The notoriously tight curve is not far from the site of the site of one of the deadliest train wrecks in U.S. history: the 1943 derailment of a train bound from Washington to New York. Seventy-nine people were killed.

The dead included an AP employee and a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy. Many of the injured suffered from broken bones or burns. At least 10 remained hospitalized in critical condition.

Nutter said some people remained unaccounted for, though he cautioned that some passengers listed on the Amtrak manifest might not have boarded the train, while others might not have checked in with authorities.

"We will not cease our efforts until we go through every vehicle," the mayor said in the afternoon. He said rescuers expanded the search area and used dogs to look for victims in case someone was thrown from the wreckage.

The NTSB finding about the train's speed corroborated an Associated Press analysis done earlier in the day of surveillance video from a spot along the tracks. The AP concluded from the footage that the train was speeding at approximately 107 mph (172 kph) moments before it entered the curve.

Despite pressure from Congress and safety regulators, Amtrak had not installed along that section of track Positive Train Control, a technology that uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to prevent trains from going over the speed limit, the railroad agency said.

Most of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor is equipped with Positive Train Control.

Amtrak inspected the stretch of track on Tuesday, just hours before the accident, and found no defects, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. In addition to the data recorder, the train had a video camera in its front end that could yield clues to what happened, said NTSB member Robert Sumwalt.

Passengers scrambled through the windows of torn and toppled cars to escape. One of the seven cars was severely mangled.

The area where the wreck happened is known as Frankford Junction, situated in a neighborhood of warehouses, industrial buildings and homes.
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Associated Press reporters Maryclaire Dale, Michael R. Sisak and Josh Cornfield in Philadelphia and Jack Gillum, Ted Bridis and Joan Lowy in Washington contributed to this story.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-05-14

[khwaibah]

RIP to those that died. Goes to show you theses things do happen in the west.. The train enginer can kiss his career good by.

Edited May 14, 2015 by Scott

[HLover]

-Mayor Michael Nutter

sounds like a TVF nickname

[chingmai331]

The train driver should bear in mind recent examples of reckless action by drivers: the good ship Costa Concordia and the captain who jumped off the boat and left many dead, the Korean ferry boat driver who left 200 kids dead and most recently and distressing the Lufthansa pilot who drove his craft into the ground.

Life in the slammer would be my choice for the train driver. Double that if found that he was looking at porn on his mobile when the curve arrived.

[HLover]

Police reports didn't confirm he was on his mobile phone at the time of the incident, but engineer voice recorder did catch him yelling "Weeeeeeeee" shortly before the derailment.