Sunday's accident in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester occurred
about 20 miles (30 km) south of another deadly Amtrak derailment in
May that killed eight people and injured 43. Passengers described
feeling a jolt and then seeing a fireball.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Ryan Frigo told
reporters on Monday that experts have reviewed video taken from the
front of the train that captured the impact and have recovered
Amtrak's audio recordings.
They have yet to determine why the equipment and the train were on
the same track despite safety standards meant to prevent such
collisions.
Specialists will examine whether the so-called Positive Train
Control system was operating and could have prevented the crash. The
system, which is designed to send navigation signals to train
operators about potential hazards, had been installed on that
stretch of Amtrak-owned track, Frigo said.
"We're still gathering facts on that information as to who had the
authority to be on that track," Frigo said.
Other equipment belonging to the Amtrak construction crew was on the
adjacent track as well, Frigo said.
The crash killed backhoe operator Joseph Carter, 61, and Peter
Adamovich, 59, who was on foot, according to the Delaware County
medical examiner's office.
The train from New York and bound for Savannah, Georgia, was
traveling at 106 mph (170 kph), below the speed limit of 110 mph
(177 kph), Frigo said.
The engineer hit the brakes about 800 feet (244 meters) from the
construction equipment and the train traveled about three blocks
after the collision.
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More inspections were set for Tuesday, including a review of the
train's brakes, Frigo said.
Steve Forbes, the U.S. publishing executive and two-time former
Republican presidential hopeful, told CNN on Monday he was riding in
the last car of the train.
"It was a matter of nanoseconds, but you felt the train was coming
to a screeching halt, then it eased up a bit, then another screech,"
Forbes said. "There was coffee flying everywhere. There was the
smell of smoke."
The locomotive engineer was among those taken to hospitals with
injuries, none of which were life-threatening, the NTSB said.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Daniel Trotta,
Bernard Orr)
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