The motorman of the Amtrak train that derailed a year ago near Philadelphia, killing eight and injuring 200, claims he was distracted by radio chatter about other trains being hit by rocks.
The National Transportation Safety Board plans to make a final determination Tuesday on the cause of the crash — but in the reports released by the agency, operator Brandon Bostian said he was focused on his radio when he came barreling into a curve on May 12, 2015.
“It seemed like that was a scenario where it would be really easy for someone to get struck by a train, out in the middle of the night with a lot of radio confusion going on,” he told investigators. “So that’ s why I made as much noise as I possibly could. But there’s a possibility that, in that situation, the extra whistling could have added to the confusion.”
The train was traveling more than tat wice the speed limit of 50 mph when it went into the turn, records show.
The data recorder shows it reached a speed of 106 mph, then the emergency brake was activated and the speed dropped to 102 mph as the train entered the turn in Frankford Junction, one of the sharpest curves in Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.