Probe: Float on tracks after warnings
Railroad’s lights, bells on before train hit veterans
MIDLAND, Texas — Federal offi cials investigating the collision of a train and a truck that killed four people at a parade said Saturday that the vehicle carrying veterans and their spouses tried to cross the tracks seconds after the railroad crossing’s bells and-lights warning system was activated.
Mark Rosekind, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters Saturday that investigators had examined video and mechanical train data from the accident.
That evidence showed that 20 seconds before the collision, the crossing’s warning system came on, as they were required to under federal railroad regulations. Eight seconds later, Rosekind said, the truck’s front crossed the first of the track’s two rails as the arm guards began slowly coming down and the crossing lights flashed and bells were sounded.
Investigators with the transportation board have not identified the truck’s driver, and they said they had not interviewed him. Because offi cials are still conducting their on- scene investigation, they stopped short of blaming the truck driver for the crash.
The crash killed four Army and Marine veterans who were all wounded in action while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Sixteen other veterans and civilians were injured, though only five people remain hospitalized. One of the injured, a veteran’s spouse, is in critical condition.
One of the injured veterans, Shane Ladner, released a statement Saturday expressing support for the volunteer group that sponsored the parade and a hunting trip that has now been canceled, Show of Support Military Hunt.
“Prayers have been and continue to be answered,” said Ladner, an Army veteran who is now a police officer in Holly Springs, Ga.
As residents prepared to gather for a prayer vigil at a downtown plaza Saturday evening, federal investigators described the final 21 seconds before the collision, providing some answers but raising more questions about the truck driver’s attempt to cross the tracks after the warning lights came on as well as about the train crew’s actions. Rosekind said the train’s emergency braking was not applied until five seconds before the collision.
The collision occurred at 4: 36 p. m. Thursday, as the parade crossed over train tracks at South Garfi eld Street and West Industrial Avenue. The parade featured two trucks that carried wounded veterans and their spouses on seats attached to open flatbed trailers. The first truck crossed over the tracks, but the second— carrying 12 veterans, 12 spouses and two escorts — was struck by a Union Pacific freight train bound for Louisiana.
Witnesses said the gate arms had been up as the vehicles and motorcycles at the front of the parade passed the rail crossing. And they said the arms came down on the people seated on the trailer as the truck made its way across the tracks. Federal investigators Saturday confi rmed some of what witnesses reported, saying that seven seconds before impact, the gate arms struck the flag poles lining the flatbed trailer. They also said that examinations and inspections of the tracks and the locomotive engine found no defects or anomalies.