Metrolink officials said Saturday that a train engineer's failure to heed a red light signal apparently caused the catastrophic head-on crash in Chatsworth on Friday afternoon that claimed at least 25 lives.
As rescuers continued the emotionally grueling work of extracting bodies from a tangled mountain of steel and dozens of families maintained vigils for the injured in hospital waiting rooms, Metrolink officials accepted responsibility for the worst Southern California train wreck in more than 50 years.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
Train crash: A report in Sunday's Section A about an engineer involved in the Chatsworth Metrolink crash said the United Transportation Union did not represent Metrolink employees. The union represents its conductors, according to union spokesman Frank N. Wilner. Also, the article said Metrolink's dispatch center is in Pacoima; it's in Pomona.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, September 27, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 67 words Type of Material: Correction
Radio report: An article in Section A on Sept. 14 about the Metrolink commuter rail crash in Chatsworth credited KCBS-AM (740) with a report that teenagers had sent text messages to the train's engineer. The information was actually reported by CBS radio and television affiliates in Los Angeles. KCBS-AM is a Bay Area affiliate. The error was repeated in an article in Section A on Sept. 15.
"We want to be honest in our appraisal," Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell somberly told reporters at the scene.
The unusually swift announcement came as the National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies were still gearing up their investigations. Saturday afternoon, the NTSB said it was reserving judgment on the cause of the collision, and a union representing 125,000 rail workers -- though not those who work for Metrolink -- called the assignment of blame "terribly premature."
"The signals might not have been working" properly, said Frank N. Wilner of the United Transportation Union, noting that officials had not yet examined the "black box" and other crash-site evidence. "We don't know if there was glare, or if he succumbed to a heart attack or a stroke."
The engineer, who died in the crash, had at least 10 years of experience working for Amtrak and more recently a private firm, Veolia Transportation, which has contracted with Metrolink to provide engineers since 2005, officials said. The Simi Valley-bound Metrolink train he drove Friday was carrying 225 passengers when it collided with a Union Pacific freight train descending into the San Fernando Valley.
"That is what has caused so much pain," Tyrrell said. "It is your worst fear that this could happen, that the ability for human error to occur could come into the scenario."
Friday's crash boosted Metrolink's fatality record to one of the worst in the nation, records show.
Beyond the death toll, which continued climbing Saturday, 135 passengers were injured, 40 of them critically, when the freight train's locomotive slammed into the Metrolink engine, driving it back inside the shell of the first seating car.
The process of identifying those killed and notifying relatives continued through the day, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office. By Saturday night, the names of 21 people killed in the crash had been released. And across the county, friends and relatives of the injured waited for news.
