| |
WASHINGTON: Twenty-four hours after the US capital's deadliest subway crash, federal investigators Tuesday said they believed the trains were operating in automatic mode but that the cause of the collision remained a mystery.
The emergency brake had also been pressed in, indicating that the train's 42-year-old female driver may have attempted to halt it before slamming into another train from behind during rush hour Monday, investigators said.
The driver, who was among nine people killed in the crash, had only been operating Metro trains for three months, according to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) spokeswoman Debbie Hersman.
"We have not yet made any determination about the cause of this accident," she told a press conference near the scene of the crash.
"We haven't ruled anything out," she added, acknowledging that the NTSB had formally requested access to the striking train operator's mobile phone records but stressed that that was "not a specific area we are singling out".
The striking train was one of the oldest in the fleet, potentially in service on the day Washington's Metro system opened to the public in 1976, Hersman said.
She said preliminary evidence at the scene in northeast Washington strongly suggested the striking train was operating in automatic mode -- as normal during rush hour.
"The toggle switch, dial and master controller (in the train's operator cab) confirm to us that the train was in automatic mode at the time of the accident," Hersman said, adding that the "mushroom, emergency brake... was found in a depressed position."
The NTSB would soon gain access to nine recorders on the newer, struck train -- data she expected would shed light on what may have caused train 112 to plow into train 214 which was stopped on the same track.
Concerns have focused on the computerised signal system designed to prevent train collisions, and on the age of train 112, one of the Metro's 1000-series trains delivered from 1975 to 1978.
"We are aggressively seeking to replace the 1000-series railcars... and we had taken action before this tragedy to achieve that objective," Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) board chairman Jim Graham said.
- AFP/yt
|
