PHILADELPHIA — The death toll in the derailment of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia grew to eight Thursday and the attorney for the train’s engineer said his client has “absolutely no recollection” of the crash or of deploying the emergency brake as he entered a curve at more than 100 mph.
At a midday news conference in which the latest death was announced, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer said rescuers, with the help of cadaver dogs, pulled a body from the wreckage of the first train car.
Also, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said all 243 passengers and crew members who were believed to be on board the train have been accounted for.
Attorney Robert Goggin told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday that the engineer, Brandon Bostian, 32, suffered a concussion, had 15 staples in his head, and stitches in his leg among other injuries suffered in the crash Tuesday night.
“He remembers driving the train,” Goggin said. “He remembers coming into the curve. He remembers attempting to reduce speed thereafter. He does not remember deploying the emergency brake.”
Even as investigators focused on Bostian and the speed at which the train was moving, officials pressed the need for an automated system known as positive train control that they say could have prevented the tragedy. The system is in operation in parts of Amtrak’s busy Northeast Corridor, but not along the stretch of track where the train derailed Tuesday night.
National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said Thursday that positive train control could have prevented the accident. In general, the system uses sensors and other technology to analyze real-time information about speed and other factors so that the train can automatically react by braking.
“We think there is an option that’s even better than having a second person in the locomotive cab and that’s a system called positive train control,” Sumwalt said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“That is a system that is designed to protect against human error,” he said. “If error occurs, positive train control will kick in and control the speed of the train.”
The NTSB has been a strong backer of positive train control and it has been installed in parts of the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Philadelphia and from Connecticut to Boston. It has not been yet installed in much of the route from Philadelphia to New York City.
Congress had ordered that positive controls be installed throughout nation’s railroad system by the end of this year. But the system is complex and expensive, and has been a challenge for rail authorities to meet the deadline.
Bostian’s actions in the moments before the crash, after Amtrak 188 left Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station at 9:10 p.m. en route to New York City, have become the focal point of the crash as investigators question why the train was traveling at such a high rate of speed. The speed limit on the straightaway before the curve is 80 mph, dropping to 50 mph in the curve.
“Clearly it was reckless in terms of the driving by the engineer,” Nutter said when asked about the speed. “There’s no way in the world that he should have been going that fast into the curve.”
Nutter spoke to CNN on Wednesday after the NTSB confirmed that the train was traveling at 106 mph.
“Clearly he was reckless and irresponsible in his actions,” Nutter said, without mentioning the engineer by name. “I don’t know what was going on with him. I don’t know what was going on in the cab.”
He was asked if it was possible the engineer had been trying to make up lost time if he was running behind schedule. Nutter replied: “You almost have to be an idiot, even if you’re trying to make up time,” to go that fast. “That is not acceptable under any set of circumstances.”
Sumwalt, speaking Thursday on “CBS This Morning,” said he disagreed with Nutter’s comments about the engineer.
Sumwalt said Nutter’s comments were “subjective” and “judgmental.” He said investigators are not making any “judgment calls” and hope to interview the engineer “very soon.”
Asked about comments by the engineer’s attorney that his client cannot remember the crash, Sumwalt said that would not be surprising for somebody who has been through a traumatic event.
Bostian has been an Amtrak engineer for four years and six months and, before that, was an Amtrak passenger conductor from 2006 to 2010, according to a LinkedIn profile under his name.
A few hours after the crash, Bostian changed his Facebook profile picture to a black rectangle as friends swarmed to his side and posted messages of support for the engineer, who listed his hometown as Memphis, Tenn.
Perhaps the strongest message of support came Wednesday from one friend who lists himself as an Amtrak engineer.
“Hold your head up,” wrote Mark Schulthies. “What you know about yourself and those of us that know you is more important than anything being said in the media. Everyday we hold lives in our hands — 99.9 percent of the time it goes unappreciated and taken for granted. Yes, it happened to you but it could have been any one of us and you are not alone.”
Bostian attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo., where his LinkedIn profile said he attained a bachelor’s in business administration and management. Bostian was also a member of Acacia, a service fraternity, and in recent years, was an LGBT rights advocate while living in San Francisco and New York City, according to a news article.
Investigators still are waiting to speak with Bostian and have not said when that will happen. Attorney Goggin said he believed part of Bostian’s memory loss was due to his concussion.
“I can tell you he was distraught when he learned of the devastation,” Goggin said. “He was distraught.”
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