WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board has released a preliminary report on an Amtrak crash that killed eight people and injured more than 200.
The train went off the tracks near Philadelphia on May 12.
The NTSB estimates the train was going 106 mph before the emergency brake was used.
The authorized speed in the area is 50 mph.
According to the NTSB, ‘The data indicated that the engineer activated the emergency brakes seconds before the derailment.’
The engineer was Brandon Bostian, who graduated from Bartlett High School in 2001.
Bostian has said he has no memory of the crash.
The preliminary report states the NTSB has Bostian’s phone and phone records, and even though it’s been several weeks, they aren’t saying if he was on his phone at the time of the crash.
The report states, ‘ 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. 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.’
A full report, with findings, could take up to a year.
