Train Wreck Investigation Update: Remains Found
KSCB News - June 26, 2012 6:30 am
UPDATE Remains Found
Oklahoma’s medical examiner’s office says it has received the remains of three Union Pacific crew members killed when two trains collided head-on in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Spokeswoman Amy Elliott says the medical examiner’s office in Oklahoma City has received the remains of three men pulled from the wreckage of the Sunday morning crash near Goodwell.
A Union Pacific spokeswoman did not immediately return calls or emails seeking comment.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating why the two trains collided on the same track, causing a white-hot diesel fire that burned for more than a day and made it too dangerous for crews to enter the wreckage.
The agency says it found no problems with the train signals, and investigators are trying to determine which train should have yielded.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Investigators say one of two freight trains
that collided in the Oklahoma Panhandle should have been waiting on
a side track while the other passed. Three Union Pacific workers
are dead after Sunday morning’s fiery crash.
One conductor jumped from a locomotive shortly before the accident.
The National Transportation Safety Board says it found no
problems with the train signals, and the agency is trying to
determine who should have yielded. It also will look at the crew
members’ phone records to make sure the phones hadn’t distracted
them.
A truck driver who witnessed the accident said one train was
traveling at 68 mph just before the crash while the other had
slowed considerably as the collision became inevitable.