Amtrak train reportedly going 106mph into turn at time of crash

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The Amtrak train that derailed outside Philadelphia on Tuesday night was traveling at about 106 miles per hour just before it crashed, according to the investigators with the federal National Transportation Safety Board.

The investigators have yet to interview the engineer, who allegedly activated emergency braking of the train moments before the disaster.

At approximately 9.21pm, when the train took a left hand turn, the entire train derailed, NTSB investigator Robert Sumwalt told reporters on Wednesday.

The speed limit before the curve is 80mph and drops to 50mph at the curve. According to the investigators the train was traveling at about 106mph. Three seconds after the emergency brake was activated the train slowed to about 102mph.

“That’s our first look at it,” said Sumwalt. “We are pretty confident that the train was traveling within one to two miles of those speeds.”

Sumwalt said investigators hoped to interview the engineer who applied the emergency brake. Police said he has so far refused to give a statement.

On Wednesday afternoon emergency personnel were still combing through the wreckage for further survivors or bodies, delaying a more thorough on-site investigation into the cause of the crash. Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter said the search area had been expanded from the area immediately around the train and the tracks since Wednesday morning.

“It’s been expanded to look even further in case someone was possibly thrown from the train,” he said.

When the train derailed on Tuesday night the engine separated from the six passenger cars and several of the carriages overturned, with at least one flipping entirely upside down. The carriages could be seen at the crash site at precarious angles, some with their wheels in the air and some badly mangled, partially crushed with their metal shredded and twisted.

Nutter described the crash scene as one of devastation.

“To see these cars, these huge metal vehicles turned upside down, one basically almost split in half, most on their side, tilted, the engine completely separated, you know, it’s devastating. It’s almost indescribable, it’s painful,” he said.

Related: Amtrak's Northeast Corridor: train crash occurred on America's busiest network

The seventh fatality was announced on Wednesday afternoon after another body was pulled from the wreckage. The victim was recovered as crews combed through the mangled train, Philadelphia fire department executive chief Clifford Gilliam said.

The deaths included an Associated Press employee and a US Naval Academy midshipman.

The NTSB’s Sumwalt said investigators were looking into speed and all other possible factors involved in the crash but were focusing on examining data off site on Wednesday rather than a detailed investigation of the wreckage because emergency personnel were still working to free passengers.

“They are looking to see, is there anyone else in the rail cars? The search and rescue effort will take precedence over our accident investigation,” Sumwalt said in a mid-morning news conference on Wednesday.

At least 150 people were injured and taken to local hospitals, where at least two dozen were still being treated on Wednesday for injuries ranging from fractures to serious wounds.

Temple University hospital chief medical officer Dr Herbert Cushing said on Wednesday eight of the 23 patients there were still in critical condition.

Cushing said he was “startled to hear” about the number of rib fractures that came into the hospital last night. He said several patients had collapsed lungs as a result of the fractured ribs.

“Almost everybody had rib fractures,” Cushing said.

He said he expected most patients to leave the hospital in the next five to seven days, after which there should be “just a handful” of patients remaining at Temple.

Cushing said he was proud of his staff and the way they reacted to admitting so many patients at once.

“Things came together here last night,” he said.

The hospital was nearly surrounded by news vans, with workers studiously avoiding the media.Northeast Corridor services between New York and Philadelphia, one of the most heavily travelled routes in the US, remained suspended, Amtrak said.

The death toll could rise as officials struggle to establish how many people, if any, are still trapped in the wreckage and also try to match Amtrak’s manifest of the names of passengers who were booked on the service with the identities of people taken to hospital and those who walked away shocked but unharmed.

“This is a horrific scene. We will do everything we can until we have accounted for everyone who we believe was on the train,” said Nutter.

“We are heartbroken at what has happened here. We have not experienced anything like this in our modern history. We have expressed our deepest sorrow to the victims,” he said. He ordered flags in the city to fly at half staff.

The conductor who was operating the train at the time survived the crash and is injured. Interviewing the train crew is a high priority, said Sumwalt.

There was a video camera on the front of the train recording the journey, and investigators will have access to onboard recorded data that will tell them the exact speed the train was travelling as it went into the bend, the movements of the throttle and brakes, the actions of the engineer on board and other details of the train’s operation.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Jim Gaines, a 48-year-old father of two and one of the news agency’s video software architects, was killed in the crash.

The US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, said one of its midshipmen was on leave and on his way home on the Amtrak train when he was killed in the derailment, the AP reported.

Sumwalt said a multi-disciplinary team from the NTSB and the Federal Railroad Administration are investigating.

Vice-president Joe Biden, known for his support of Amtrak, said the company “is like a second family to me, as it is for so many other passengers. For my entire career, I’ve made the trip from Wilmington to Washington and back.”

“Our thoughts are with every person who is grieving right now from this terrible tragedy. As a nation, we pray for the victims and their families,” he said.

Train cars ‘ripped apart’

Amtrak’s Northeast Regional train service 188 came off the tracks and lay many yards from the tracks in the dark as emergency personnel rushed to the scene.

Hospital figures showed that 136 of the survivors were taken to hospital in the hours immediately after the crash. Others stood next to the tracks, hugging each other, staring in shock or using their phones.

Nutter added that a surprising number of people managed to escape the crash without serious injury.

“It’s incredible that so many people walked away from that scene last night. I saw people walking off that train and I don’t know how that happened, but for the grace of God,” he said.

Slate pointed out that the same stretch of track was the scene of one of America’s worst rail disasters in 1943, when 79 people were killed.

Survivors described scenes of horror and chaos, and TV footage showed dozens of emergency workers scrambling around the wreckage.

Former Pennsylvania representative Patrick Murphy, who was a passenger on the train, said the cafe car he was travelling in flipped over, but he escaped with minor cuts and bruises.

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“There was a lot of mayhem. A lot of blood, a lot of bleeding. I pulled myself up. The guy who I kind of landed on was OK. The guy next to him was completely passed out, knocked unconscious. People were pretty banged up,” he told the local ABC TV news station.

Tom Wolf, the Pennsylvania governor, arrived on the scene in the early hours of Wednesday morning. “Anything that the state can do, we stand ready to do that,” he said.

• Those trying to locate passengers on the train are being told to call the Amtrak hotline: 1 800 523 9101. People in Philadelphia can do so in person by going to Webster elementary school on 3400 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia.