Officials: Amtrak Engineer Hit Brakes Seconds Before Crash
CHESTER, Pa. (WJZ) — What went wrong? A train carrying more than 300 people crashed into a backhoe at 106 miles an hour on the busy Northeast corridor. It should never have happened. Strict federal guidelines regulate work being done on the tracks.
Investigator Mike Hellgren has more on the focus for Amtrak and the NTSB now.
They want to know how the maintenance equipment and the train ended up on the same tracks, killing two workers with decades of experience between them and briefly closing the busy route many here depend on.
With the Amtrak Palmetto unexpectedly bearing down on their backhoe at 106 miles an hour, longtime Amtrak employees Joseph Carer Jr. and Peter Adamovich could not get out of the way.
"They didn't have a chance. The train was coming really fast and people don't appreciate how fast 106 miles an hour really is," said Marc Rosen.
Federal investigators have the data recorder and are now looking at who authorized the track work and whether protocol was followed. Federal regulators require multiple safeguards that make the track physically inaccessible and mandate visible and audible warnings and a lookout present.
"We're still gathering information as to who had the authority to be on that track," said Ryan Frigo, NTSB.
Rosen represented those killed in the 1987 Chase, Maryland derailment---the deadliest ever on the Northeast corridor.
"This was a heavy piece of equipment so it would have required early scheduling for maintenance. It would be surprising to learn the two individuals were on a track other than the track that they were supposed to be on," Rosen said.
Three workers have been killed along the Northeast corridor just since March 1.
Amtrak fully installed a safety device called Positive Train Control that slows trains after another deadly derailment last March, but Rosen says that would have made little difference in this case.
"It's one of two things: human error on the tracks or human error in the control center," Rosen said.
The engineer hit the emergency brake just five seconds before the crash Sunday morning.
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