Federal investigators said Wednesday that records from Metrolink engineer Robert M. Sanchez's cellphone show that he sent and received text messages while on duty Friday, the day he was involved in a catastrophic train collision in Chatsworth.
However, investigators have not yet analyzed the records to determine whether Sanchez was using his phone at the time his train slammed into an oncoming Union Pacific freight train in an accident that left 25 people dead and 135 others injured.
"The safety board will correlate those records with other investigative information to determine as precisely as possible the exact times of those messages in relation to the engineer's operation of his train," a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said in a written statement.
The agency subpoenaed the phone records after hearing news reports that several youths said they had exchanged text messages with Sanchez shortly before the crash.
Federal investigators did not say how many text messages Sanchez sent and received.
The NTSB disclosure came on the eve of a California Public Utilities Commission meeting today at which officials are expected to ban personal use of wireless devices by train workers. The move, a response to Friday's crash, is intended to quickly correct a troubling omission in federal railroad regulations, according to a PUC report obtained Wednesday.
In addition to the Chatsworth crash, which the report says may have been partially caused by cellphone use, inappropriate phone usage may have resulted in a collision between two San Francisco commuter trains in June. Swift action is needed because of the "imminent danger" of mobile phone use by rail workers, the report says.
Also on Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa replaced one voting member and one alternate member of the Metrolink board of directors, saying he wanted to ensure that safety and agency transparency are top priorities.
The move was not a rebuke of the board members who were replaced, but was intended to send a clear message to the 11-member Metrolink board that it was a mistake to "assume a defensive posture" in its response to the tragedy, said a source familiar with the mayor's decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
He was referring to actions taken against Metrolink's chief spokeswoman, Denise Tyrrell.
