|
 The locomotive of the Metro-North train was re-railed at 4:20
a.m., and two cranes were in place to lift the rest of the toppled
cars pending approval of the National Transportation and Safety
Board, spokesman Aaron Donovan said.
About 150 people were on board when the train derailed Sunday
morning on the Hudson line in the Bronx. Donovan said the railroad
believed everyone aboard has been accounted for.
The National Transportation Safety Board said its investigators
could spend up to 10 days probing all aspects of the accident that
toppled seven cars and the locomotive, leaving the lead car only
inches from the water at a bend in the Bronx where the Hudson and
Harlem rivers meet.
The NTSB said it would consider whether excessive speed, mechanical
problems or human error played a role in the crash.
It was the latest accident in a troubled year for Metro-North, which
had never experienced passenger death in an accident in its 31-year
history.
Joel Zaritsky, who was dozing as he traveled to a dental convention
aboard the train, woke up to feel his car overturning several times.
"Then I saw the gravel coming at me, and I heard people screaming,"
he told The Associated Press, holding his bloody right hand. "There
was smoke everywhere and debris. People were thrown to the other
side of the train."
The MTA was providing shuttle buses Monday morning to ferry
passengers between stops and to another rail line, but it urged
riders who could work from home to do so.
NTSB board member Earl Weener said at a news conference Sunday the
agency had just begun its investigation and hadn't yet spoken to the
train's engineer, who was among the injured. Authorities did not
release his name.
Investigators were due to examine factors ranging from the track
condition to the crew's performance. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the
track did not appear to be faulty, leaving speed as a possible
culprit for the crash. The speed limit on the curve is 30 mph,
compared with 70 mph in the area approaching it, Weener said.
Authorities did not yet know how fast the train was traveling but
had found a data recorder, he said.
One passenger, Frank Tatulli, told WABC-TV that the train appeared
to be going "a lot faster" than usual as it approached the sharp
curve near the Spuyten Duyvil station.
Nearby residents awoke to a building-shaking boom. Angel Gonzalez
was in bed in his high-rise apartment overlooking the rail curve
when he heard the roar.
"I thought it was a plane that crashed," he said.
Within minutes, dozens of emergency crews arrived and carried
passengers away on stretchers, some wearing neck braces. Others,
bloodied and scratched, held ice packs to their heads. In their
efforts to find passengers, rescuers shattered windows, searched
nearby woods and waters and used pneumatic jacks and air bags to
peer under wreckage.
[to top of second column] |
The MTA identified the victims Sunday as Donna L. Smith, 54, of
Newburgh; James G. Lovell, 58, of Cold Spring; James M. Ferrari, 59,
of Montrose; and Ahn Kisook, 35, of Queens. Three of the dead were
found outside the train, and one was found inside, authorities said.
Autopsies were scheduled for Monday, the New York City medical
examiner's office said.
Lovell, an audio technician, was traveling from his Cold Spring home
to midtown Manhattan to work on the famed Rockefeller Center
Christmas tree, said longtime friend Janet Barton. The tree-lighting
ceremony is Wednesday night.
Eleven of the injured were believed to be critically wounded and six
more seriously hurt, according to the Fire Department. After
visiting an area hospital Sunday evening, New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg told reporters that the 11 who originally were
critical no longer appeared to have life-threatening injuries.
As deadly as the derailment was, the toll could have been far
greater had it happened on a weekday, or had the lead car plunged
into the water instead of nearing it. The train was about half-full
at the time of the crash, rail officials said.
For decades, the NTSB has been urging railroads to install
technology that can stop derailing caused by excessive speed, along
with other problems.
A rail-safety law passed by Congress in 2008 gave commuter and
freight railroads until the end of 2015 to install the systems,
known as positive train control. PTC is aimed at preventing human
error — the cause of about 40 percent of train accidents. But the
systems are expensive and complicated. Railroads are trying to push
back the installation deadline another five to seven years.
Metro-North is in the process of installing the technology. It now
has what's called an "automatic train control" signal system, which
automatically applies the brakes if an engineer fails to respond to
an alert that indicates excessive speed.
Such systems can slow trains in some circumstances but not bring
them to a halt, said Grady Cothen, a former Federal Railroad
Administration safety official.
Sunday's accident came six months after an eastbound train derailed
in Bridgeport, Conn., and was struck by a westbound train. The crash
injured 73 passengers, two engineers and a conductor. In July, a
freight train full of garbage derailed on the same Metro-North line
near the site of Sunday's wreckage.
[Associated
Press; KILEY ARMSTRONG and
VERENA DOBNIK]
Associated Press writers
Deepti Hajela, Colleen Long, Jake Pearson and Jennifer Peltz in New
York, Joan Lowy in Washington and Stephen Singer in Hartford, Conn.,
contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
