Specifically, he was distracted by radio conversations between other trains and dispatchers about other trains being hit with projectiles, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded. They said he lost track of where he was and accelerated full-throttle to 106 miles per hour as he went into a sharp curve with a 50 miles per hour limit.
Advertisement
Robert Sumwalt, another member of the NTSB, said Mr Bostian went “from distraction to disaster…in a matter of seconds”.
The derailment, which was caused by excessive speed on a curve, resulted in the death of eight people and the injury of 200. He and his lawyer did not return calls and emails seeking comment.
Amtrak has installed positive train control on all of the track it owns between Washington and Boston, but a 56-mile state-owned stretch between New Rochelle, New York and New Haven, Connecticut still doesn’t have the technology.
Amtrak noted that Positive Train Control is already in place on most of its portion of the Northeast Corridor and that it has also installed inward-facing video cameras on locomotives.
FILE- In this Wednesday, May 13, 2015 file photo, emergency personnel work at the scene of a Tuesday night derailment in Philadelphia of an Amtrak train headed to NY. Four passengers died after they were thrown from the train when windows came loose.
Having ruled out other factors including equipment problems and cell phone use, investigators determined that engineer Brandon Bostian lost track of where he was after hearing on the radio that a commuter train had been struck with a rock.
Sarah Feinberg, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, said the board’s findings underscored the urgency for other railroads to install automatic braking.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator Ted Turpin presents his report at the NTSB meeting in Washington, Tuesday, May 17, 2016, on the derailment of an Amtrak passenger train in Philadelphia lat year.
He told the NTSB that he was concerned about the welfare of the commuter train’s engineer and “a little bit concerned” for his own safety, but he never indicated his own train had been struck, too.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office is helping the NTSB on the investigation, but a spokesman would not comment on the possibility of criminal charges.
A USA official briefed by investigators told The Associated Press that Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian was distracted by radio transmissions before the May 2015 crash in Philadelphia.
There are only a few short sections of rail in the Northeast rail corridor, totaling 7 miles in all, that do not have the safety system, Schulz said, and they are all slow speed segments near stations.
Phillips said the city’s response to the Amtrak crash was “a success”, but added that the police, fire department, first responders and hospitals could work together better in the future.
“It is a world in which the engineer relies in part on the memorized details of the route, and a world in which a loss of awareness can take a bad toll”, Hart said in his opening remarks Tuesday as the board meets to detail the probable cause of the derailment.
Bostian, known among his friends for his safety-mindedness and love of railroading, apparently commented in an online forum for train enthusiasts on a range of industry issues, including safety.
Ed Greenberg, of the Association for American Railroads, said positive train control is a priority for freight carriers.
Advertisement
The board repeated an earlier recommendation to the Federal Railroad Administration to develop a standard for windows to remain in their frames during a train crash. He said that even though “humans commit errors” he was concerned about removing the focus of the crash from the human performance and blaming lack of PTC as the probable cause.
