Posted on 05/14/2015 7:07:28 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
CHATSWORTH Investigators probing Friday's fatal Metrolink collision planned to interview the freight train's brakeman and the conductor Wednesday, the first full day of resumed service along the stretch of track that was closed after the crash that killed 25 people and injured 135 others.
Investigations have linked the cause of the crash to Metrolink engineer Robert Martin Sanchez, a La Crescenta resident who previously lived in Menifee.
Authorities Tuesday staged a re-creation of the collision, bringing two trains nose-to-nose on the tracks in Chatsworth and then moving them back and forth to determine what the engineers on each was able to see before impact.
The section of track where the crash occurred, which had been closed since then, was reopened about 4 p.m. Tuesday.
At 4:23 p.m. Friday, the trains, each traveling about 40 mph, slammed together on a curving section of track near Chatsworth. The force of the collision sent the locomotive of the Metrolink train back through the adjoining passenger car.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators Tuesday used a three-car Metrolink train and a three-car Union Pacific train to try to gain insight about when each engineer was able to see the other train.
NTSB member Kitty Higgins said Sanchez never applied the Metrolink train's brakes, but the Union Pacific train engineer did.
So far, tests have suggested that human error caused the northbound passenger train to run a yellow light and a red light and collide head-on with the freight train, according to the NTSB, which is in charge of the probe.
Board officials said the signal lights all appeared to be working properly.
Higgins said investigators planned to talk to the freight train's brakeman and conductor Wednesday. She said the freight train's engineer was too injured to talk at this point.
Investigators Tuesday talked to the Metrolink conductor, who said he had worked with engineer Sanchez since April.
The conductor said he was not aware of physical problems Sanchez might have had or what medication he might have been taking. He also said there had been no communication between the two as the train went through the last two stations.
Higgins said the engineer normally worked an eight-hour work schedule, but had come to work at 5 a.m. Friday, worked until 9:26 a.m., took a two-hour nap, and then began his regular eight-hour shift at 2 p.m.
There is only one engineer on each Metrolink train.
Higgins said information downloaded from a recorder on the Metrolink train showed that its brakes were never applied.
Higgins said her agency had the engineer's medical records, but could not share that information. Colleagues of the 46-year-old Sanchez, who died in the crash, were interviewed about what happened in the moments before the crash.
According to the Los Angeles Times, people who knew Sanchez said he was an upbeat man who led a solitary life in recent years, but shared little about a past that included tragedy and run-ins with the law.
Investigators said they had ruled out train and track failure in the accident, and were close to ruling out signal failure. They said they were focusing on Sanchez and the long days engineers must work, which include lengthy breaks during non-peak hours, The Times reported.
According to The Times: Sanchez had lived in Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska and California, and in 2000, he and Daniel Charles Burton, a waiter, bought a home in Crestline.
Burton had moved to California from West Haven, Conn., his family said, seeking better weather and the freedom to be gay. Burton lived together Studio City and moved to the San Bernardino Mountains.
On Feb. 14, 2003, Burton hanged himself in the garage of their home.
The coroner's report showed that Burton tested positive for HIV.
According to the report, Sanchez told investigators that he and Burton had been arguing before the suicide, and Sanchez told Burton that they should break up.
Even before the suicide, Sanchez was having problems.
In 2002, he was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting a video game component from Costco, said Wilson Wong, his former attorney. Initially charged with a felony, Sanchez pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, paid a fine and served 90 days in jail on weekends, Wong said.
Sanchez had three minor traffic citations between 2001 and 2005, including speeding and failure to wear a seat belt.
He also had a federal tax lien filed against him in 1991 for $6,054 and a Riverside County tax lien for $1,205 filed in 2006, records show. Both were resolved.
The NTSB said Tuesday that Sanchez was hired by Union Pacific in 1996.
In 1998, he went to work for Amtrak and was hired by a contractor to work for Metrolink in 2005.
In 2006, Sanchez moved into a modest, two-story home in La Crescenta with his four greyhounds.
Investigators are looking into reports that Sanchez may have been text messaging a group of teenage train enthusiasts just before the accident. The NTSB said Tuesday that it had subpoenaed cell phone records to examine the engineer's text messages.
Yes, I know the link is broken. And yes this is a story from 2008.
Are there any concerns over the similarities between this story and the gay activist who caused multiple deaths in Philly?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3289560/posts
A small price to pay for letting a mentally ill person feel good about his chosen lifestyle. < / sarcasm >
Is there any objective study whether gays are less stable than straights? I have known a lot of unstable straights, but seems like more unstable gays, as a whole. This perception is merely anecdotal.
If a study is run, it should not blame society for its perceptions on gays, only if they are less or more stable, on average.
A confusion of bodily orifices ought to say something in regard to stability or lack thereof, no?
Liberals are only concerned with the lives lost from gunshot. The rest are of little concern.
I’m sure the progressives and leftists feel that all the death, injury and property damage from these ‘accidents’ is a small price to pay in their pursuit of diversity and political correctness.
Of course, such fruitcakes are the exception among the straight population and the rule among the gay population. When such fruitcake behavior is considered normal among a particular population subset, I don't think it is unfair to say said subset has mental issues.
Posted on Thursday, May 14, 2015 4:03:33 AM by Reaganite Republican
Well the GermanWings brass agreed with that line of thinking.
Sanchez was distracted by texting, which caused the crash. What that has to do with homosexuality I have no idea.
I notice there are dogs in both of these “families”
‘______What that has to do with homosexuality I don’t know.’
Do I vaguely remember he was texting to young boys - - ?
(Not relatives - )
He was texting to train enthusiasts. He was a train engineer. I don’t that makes him a homo.
‘I don’t think [that] makes him a homo.’
Right.
And I know about train enthusiasts. My father, for one. He had quite a lay-out or two, both in the cellar of a home on Long Island, and then the garage of his home in Florida.
A few years ago, at the age of about 20, our grandson in Colorado help rebuild a steam engine with a 20 year old friend. The engine is on display in Boulder, think it is.
Bringing the engine into the shop, and then it leaving the shop, were a huge occasion!
I saw it just once, at grandson’s friend’s dad’s machine shop in north Denver. It was quite a ‘machine.’
Grandson is now living in Australia, pursing his doctorate - in Entymology!
Train engines, to snakes (in Kansas) and now bugs!
(I believe some ‘species’ of train enthusiast [not my father and grandson] are called ‘droolers.’ - - nice . .).
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