PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Federal investigators are trying to determine why an Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven people, was careening through the city at 106 mph before it ran off the rails along a sharp curve where the speed limit drops to just 50 mph.
Robert Sumwalt, of the National Transportation Safety Board, says a data recorder and a video camera in the train’s front end could yield clues to what happened. The Federal Railroad Administration says Amtrak inspected the stretch of track on Tuesday, just hours before the accident, and found no defects.
More than 200 people aboard the Washington-to-New York train were injured in the wreck. At least 10 people remain hospitalized in critical condition.
It was the nation’s deadliest train accident in nearly seven years.