Probe seeks crash cause
NEW YORK — Federal authorities today were beginning an exhaustive investigation into what caused a New York City commuter train rounding a riverside curve to derail, killing four people and injuring more than 60 others. Officials warned the 26,000 weekday riders on the affected line of the nation’s second-biggest commuter railroad to brace for crowded trains during the morning commute.
The locomotive of the Metro-North train was hoisted back on the track 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 mishap in a troubled year for Metro-North, which had never before experienced a passenger death during an accident in its 31-year history.
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.
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 this 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 the agency had just begun its investigation and hadn’t yet spoken to the train’s engineer, who was among the injured.
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.
