Amtrak crash probe examines report of object striking train

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Friday it is examining damage to the Amtrak train that derailed this week in Philadelphia to see if it was struck by an object moments before the crash, which killed eight people and left 200 injured.

An assistant conductor told NTSB investigators on Friday that she heard the engineer, 32-year-old Brandon Bostian, talking by radio with the driver of another train from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), a Philadelphia commuter rail system. The SEPTA driver reported that his windshield had been cracked by a projectile that he said he believed was a bullet or something thrown at the train, according to Reuters.

Bostian replied, according to the assistant conductor, that he believed his New York–bound Amtrak train had been similarly struck after pulling out of its previous stop, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said. 

Sumwalt said his team saw "damage to the left-hand lower portion of the Amtrak windshield" and has asked the FBI to look at it. The damage appears circular, which is consistent with the impact of a projectile. Investigators plan to examine the damage Friday evening. 

Bostian told investigators that he did not feel fatigued or have any illness before the accident, an NTSB official said Friday.

Sumwalt said at a news conference that Bostian was "extremely cooperative" during an hour-and-a-half interview but that the engineer did not remember anything of Tuesday's crash.

Investigators are also conducting drug tests. Bostian's lawyer has said his client was not using drugs or alcohol. 

Investigators have so far focused on the train’s speed and its sudden burst of acceleration.

The NTSB has said the train sped up from about 70 mph to over 100 mph in the 65 seconds before the crash, on the basis of a video taken by the locomotive's front-facing camera. The board is investigating what caused the acceleration.

Investigators earlier disclosed that Bostian slammed on the emergency braking system seconds before the wreck as the train entered a curve. That slowed the train to 102 mph, or twice the speed limit on that stretch, before it derailed.

The wreck has raised questions about positive train control, a system that automatically brakes trains going too fast. It is installed on the tracks where the train derailed Tuesday but had not been turned on because further testing was needed, Amtrak’s president, Joseph Boardman, said this week. 

Boardman also said he intends to have the system running across Amtrak by the end of this year, as Congress mandated in 2008.

Preliminary checks have not found any problems with the train, the rail line or the signals that would have contributed to a crash.

The U.S. House of Representatives Transportation Committee is set to hold a hearing on the accident at a date to be announced, its chairman, Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said Friday.

Wire services