A commuter train engineer sent a cellphone text message 22 seconds before his commuter train crashed head-on into a freight train in southern California last month, killing 25 people, federal investigators said on Wednesday.
Cellphone records of Robert Sanchez, who was among the dead, show he received a text message 1 minute and 20 seconds before the crash and sent one about a minute later, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a news release.
The finding led Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Boardman to announce an emergency order prohibiting use of personal electronic devices by rail workers operating trains and in other key jobs.
The order must be published in the Federal Register to take effect. Spokesman Rob Kulat said that would happen “soon.” California regulators have already enacted a ban.
Investigators are looking into why Sanchez ran through a red signal before the Metrolink train collided with a Union Pacific train on Sept. 12 on a curve in the San Fernando Valley community of Chatsworth. The time of the final text suggests it is unlikely he had become incapacitated for some reason.
The records obtained from Sanchez’s cellphone provider also show that he sent 24 text messages and received 21 over a two-hour period during his morning shift.
During his afternoon shift, he received seven messages and sent five.
Sanchez sent his last text message at 4:22:01pm. The freight train’s on-board recorder show the accident occurred at 4:22:23pm.
Metrolink board member Richard Katz said in an interview that the NTSB told his agency that another engineer on a Metrolink train has been suspended for sending a text message from his cellphone at about the same time as the Sept. 12 collision. That engineer was not identified.
Katz said Metrolink officials don’t know whom the other engineer was texting.
Metrolink’s engineers are supplied by a contractor, Veolia Transportation. A spokeswoman for the company, Erica Swerdlow, declined to comment on Katz’s statements, saying she couldn’t discuss personnel records. But she did say that the company has a strict policy on cellphone use and that anyone who violates it will face discipline.
NTSB investigators continue to correlate times from Sanchez’s cellphone, the train recorders and data from the railroad signal system, officials said.
The cellular records were subpoenaed from his service provider, but his actual phone was not found in the burned wreckage.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese