At least seven people lost their lives with over 200 injured when an Amtrak train in Philadelphia traveling at twice its normal speed limit entered a sharp curve as an engineer jammed on the emergency brakes a few seconds before Tuesday’s fatal train derailment, according to New York Times.
Wall Street Journal further confirmed that the National Transportation Safety Board said a “black box” data recorder put the train’s speed at 106 mph just before the curve. Although, the train’s engineer applied emergency brakes, but several seconds later, the train’s speed was only reduced to 102 mph, when the data recorder stopped.
“As we know, it takes a long time to decelerate a train,” said NTSB member Robert Sumwalt in a news conference.
Referring to the application of the brakes before the crash, he added, “You’re supposed to enter the curve at 50 miles an hour. He was already in the curve.”
Investigators are yet to conclude on all the factors that may have caused the wreck. According to reports, it is too early to know whether the crash was caused by speed alone or other factors, such as track conditions, throttle and brake settings and engineer’s cab alarms etc., were contributing factors.
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