Amtrak crash kills 2, injures more than 110
CAYCE, S.C. — An Amtrak passenger train slammed into a parked freight train in the early morning darkness Sunday after a thrown switch sent it hurtling down a side track, authorities said. Two Amtrak crew members were killed, and more than 110 people were injured.
It was the third deadly wreck involving Amtrak in less than two months.
The Silver Star, en route from New York to Miami with nearly 150 people aboard, was going an estimated 59 mph when it struck the empty CSX train around 2:45 a.m., Gov. Henry McMaster said.
The crash happened near a switchyard about 10 miles south of Columbia where railcars hauling automobiles are loaded and unloaded.
Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators found a switch had been set in a position that forced the Amtrak train off the main track and onto the siding. He said the question for investigators is why that happened.
Amtrak President Richard Anderson appeared to point the finger at CSX, saying the signal system run by the freight railroad at that spot was down at the time, and CSX dispatchers were manually routing trains. The NTSB said it was working to confirm that.
CSX issued a statement expressing condolences but said nothing about the cause of the accident.
Sumwalt said that positive train control — a GPS-based safety system that can automatically slow or stop trains — could have prevented the accident. Regulators have been pressing for the technology for decades with mixed success.
Investigators recovered a camera from the front of the Amtrak train and were looking for the data recorders from the two trains.
The conductor, Michael Cella, 36, of Orange Park, Fla., and engineer, Michael Kempf, 54, of Savannah, Ga., aboard the Amtrak locomotive were killed. And 116 people were taken to hospitals, according to the governor. At least three patients were in critical or serious condition.
On Wednesday, a chartered Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a strategy retreat slammed into a truck in rural Virginia, killing one person in the truck. And on Dec. 18, an Amtrak train ran off the rails during its inaugural run south of Tacoma, Wash., killing three people and injuring dozens.