Investigation on for cause of the crash.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report on Tuesday that found no anomalies in the braking system of the train or the signals and track in the wake of the May 12 Amtrak derailment in Pennsylvania that took the lives of eight passengers and injured 200 others.
The train was en route from Washington to New York on May 12 with 238 passengers and five crew members when it flew off the tracks at a notorious curve not far from the scene of one of the nation’s deadliest train wrecks more than 70 years ago, just north of Philadelphia, reported WCVB of Boston.
The National Transportation Safety Board had previously said that preliminary data showed the train’s speed exceeded 100 mph before it escaped the constraints of the railway’s tracks.
The NTSB report also revealed the damages from the massive crash cost $9.2 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
NTSB said it’s examining the Amtrak engineer’s cell phone and cell phone records to determine whether the engineer made any calls, texted or sent messages while operating the train, reported USA Today.
“Although the records appear to indicate that calls were made, text messages sent, and data used on the day of the accident, investigators have not yet made a determination if there was any phone activity during the time the train was being operated,” the report said. “Investigators are in the process of correlating the time stamps in the engineer’s cell phone records with multiple data sources including the locomotive event recorder, the locomotive outward facing video, recorded radio communications, and surveillance video.”
The safety board is also investigating whether rocks or other objects were thrown at the train around the time of its derailment. The locomotive’s windshield was found with impact damage, but investigators have yet to determine whether the damage was from a object that was hurled at it or the crash, the report said. It elaborated that the NTSB and FBI found no evidence of damage caused by a gun.