WASHINGTON – One Metro transit train smashed into the rear of another at the height of the capital city's Monday evening rush hour, killing at least six people and injuring scores of others as the front end of the trailing train jackknifed violently into the air and fell atop the first.

Cars of both trains were ripped open and smashed together in the worst accident in the Metrorail system's 33-year history. District of Columbia fire spokesman Alan Etter said crews had to cut some people out of what he described as a "mass casualty event." Rescue workers propped steel ladders up to the upper train cars to help survivors scramble to safety. Seats from the smashed cars spilled out onto the track.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said six were dead. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said rescue workers treated 76 people at the scene and sent some of them to local hospitals, six with critical injuries. A Metro official said the dead included the female operator of the trailing train. Her name was not immediately released.

The crash around 5 p.m. EDT took place on the system's red line, Metro's busiest, which runs below ground for much of its length but is at ground level at the accident site near the Maryland border in northeast Washington.

Metro chief John Catoe said the first train was stopped on the tracks, waiting for another to clear the station ahead, when the trailing train plowed into it from behind.

Officials had no explanation for the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board took charge of the investigation and sent a team to the site of the worst accident in the Metro system's 33-year history. DC police and the FBI also had investigators at the scene to help search the wreckage for any overlooked injured or dead passengers and evidence.

Each train had six cars and was capable of holding as many as 1,200 people. Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said the trains were bound for downtown. That would mean they were less likely to be filled during the afternoon rush hour.

More than 200 firefighters from D.C., Maryland and Virginia eventually converged on the scene. Sabrina Webber, a 45-year-old Real estate agent who lives in the neighborhood, said the first rescuers to arrive had to use the "jaws of life" to pry open a wire fence along rail line to get to the train.

Webber raced to the scene after hearing a loud boom like a "thunder crash" and then sirens. She said there was no panic among the survivors.

Passenger Jodie Wickett, a nurse, told CNN she was seated on one train, sending text messages on her phone, when she felt the impact. She said she sent a message to someone that it felt like the train had hit a bump.

"From that point on, it happened so fast, I flew out of the seat and hit my head." Wickett said she stayed at the scene and tried to help. She said "people are just in very bad shape."

"The people that were hurt, the ones that could speak, were calling back as we called out to them," she said. "Lots of people were upset and crying, but there were no screams."

One man said he was riding a bicycle across a bridge over the Metro tracks when the sound of the crash got his attention.

"I didn't see any panic," Barry Student said. "The whole situation was so surreal."

Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said less than two hours after the crash that federal authorities had no indication of any terrorism connection.

"I don't know the reason for this accident," Metro's Catoe said. "I would still say the system is safe, but we've had an incident."

The only other time in Metrorail's 33-year history that there were passenger fatalities was on Jan. 13, 1982, when three people died as a result of a derailment underneath downtown. That was a day of disaster in the capital — shortly before the subway crash, an Air Florida plane slammed into the 14th Street Bridge immediately after takeoff in a severe snowstorm from Washington National Airport across the Potomac River. The plane crash killed 78 people.
[Edited 6/23/09 3:05am]

Takoma/Fort Totten.....this is unforgivable

i hope no lovesexy dc members were on that train

perhaps they could invest a little $ into a new system.....33 years for a train system is like having a 20 year old cat

Steadwood said:

Steadwood said:

breaking news here on brekkie tv

Death toll rises to 9 in D.C. Metro crash

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The death toll climbed to nine in a rush-hour collision between two Metro trains in Washington on Monday, with scores more injured, CNN affiliates reported.

WJLA and WUSA attributed the information to officials for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Commuter traffic along the Red Line, where the crash happened, will be "severely" affected Tuesday, officials said.

By late Monday, emergency crews had switched to recovery operations after halting rescue efforts.

One of the dead was the operator of one of the trains, transit authority officials said. The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating.

The crash occurred just before 5 p.m. on an above-ground track in the District of Columbia near the border with Takoma Park, Maryland.

Both trains were on the same track, and one of them was stationary when the crash happened, said John Catoe, Metro general manager. Watch woman say she, fellow passengers "went flying" »

A total of 76 people were treated for injuries at the scene, including two with life-threatening injuries, said Chief Dennis Rubin of the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department for the District of Columbia. Two of the injured were emergency responders, Rubin said.

Four people were taken to Providence Hospital in Washington, including two with back injuries, one with a hip injury and one complaining of dizziness from hitting her head, hospital officials said.

Washington Hospital Center said it had received seven patients from the crash with non-life-threatening injuries, ranging from serious to minor. One person needed surgery. Howard University Hospital reported three patients from the crash and Suburban Hospital in Maryland said it had two.

One car was "about 75 percent compressed," and recovery workers aren't sure if any more bodies are inside, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty told CNN's "Larry King Live" on Monday night.

"We just haven't been able to cut through it to see if there's bodies in there," Fenty said.

"The scene is as horrific as you can imagine," Fenty said in a news conference. "One car was almost squeezed completely together."

A certified nursing assistant who was on one of the trains told CNN affiliate WUSA she was trying to help those in severe condition after the crash, including a lady who appeared to be in her 20s.

"She is very, very torn in her legs -- the muscles and everything are torn, ripped through. She had metal pieces in her face," said the nursing assistant, who said her name was Jeanie.

Other witnesses described seeing more blood than they had seen before. Watch injured passengers limp from the scene »

Tom Baker, who was in the train that hit the stationary train, told WUSA that after the collision, he looked toward the front of the car, and when the smoke cleared, "all you could see was sky."

Jasmine Gars, who also was on the moving train, told CNN's "Larry King Live" that the collision "was like nothing I've ever felt before."

"It was like we hit a concrete wall," Gars said. "Almost immediately, I fell off my seat. Another person -- I don't know who -- flew off their seat. And the lights went off and smoke started filling the train car."

Groups of people wearing green plastic ribbons to show they had been checked by paramedics left the crash scene about 90 minutes after the accident. Some were crying, and a woman with her arm in a sling who gave her name as Tijuana described the crash as "an earthquake."

A Metro statement said both trains were on the same track in the same direction, south out of the Fort Totten station. The operator who was killed was on the trailing train, it said. See location of crash »

"Metro officials do not know the cause of the collision and are not likely to know the cause for several days as the investigation unfolds," the statement said.

The NTSB team arrived to investigate the crash, assisted by the FBI Evidence Response Team, according to NTSB board member Deborah Hersman, who said she had walked the tracks by the accident scene.

"I can tell you it is a scene of real devastation down there," she said.

Hersman said both trains contained six cars. The trailing train, she said, struck the other train from the rear and its "first car overrode the last car of the other train in an accordion fashion."

She said it wasn't clear whether the trains carried devices that record speed and other data.

"It depends on the series of the cars," she said. "And then it will depend on whether the devices are damaged."

The recorders can provide key information, according to Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director.

The investigators "are going to look very carefully at the event recorder in the train that hit the stopped train," he said. "Unfortunately, in a number of train accidents recently, both in Boston and in Southern California, you had the engineer being distracted. My hope is that's not the case here."

In a Boston trolley accident in May and a commuter train accident near Los Angeles last fall, the operators were sending text messages just before the accidents. Since then, the California Public Utilities Commission has banned train engineers from using cell phones on duty.

The Washington transit authority told investigators that trains normally operate in automatic mode at rush hour, Hersman said, adding that investigators were trying to determine whether that was true during the accident.

Amy Kudwa of the Department of Homeland Security said, at this early stage, there was no indication of anything other than an accident.

"We will continue to monitor closely and provide support in any way needed," Kudwa said. It was the second Metro crash to involve fatalities in the 33-year history of the transit authority. In January 1982, a derailment killed three people. The only other collision between Metro trains occurred in 2004.

"We are extremely saddened that there are fatalities as a result of this accident, which has touched our Metro family," Catoe, the Metro general manager, said in a statement. "We hope to have more details about the casualties later today. Our safety officials are investigating and will continue to investigate until we determine why this happened and what must be done to ensure it never happens again."

President Obama issued a statement saying that he and the first lady were "saddened by the terrible accident," and thanking first responders "who arrived immediately to save lives." See pictures of crash site »

Jodie Wickett described feeling a bump on the track, then being flung forward when the train suddenly halted a few seconds later. She said she hit her head, but managed to get out and go to where the collision occurred a few cars up, with one train car atop another.

"There was debris, and people pinned under in between the two cars," Wickett said. "We were just trying to get them out and help them as much as possible, pulling back the metal."

People were badly injured, she said, adding that "ones that could speak were calling back as we called out to them."

Sad

What is the conductor of the train doing when the training is moving forward?

Graycap23 said:

I thought these things were fully automatic. But she ain'd doing much now since she died.

Train had safety problems

WASHINGTON – The subway train that plowed into another, causing a crash that killed seven and injured scores of others in the nation's capital, was part of an aging fleet that federal regulators had recommended three years ago be phased out or retrofitted, a safety investigator said Tuesday.

Debbie Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board said the Metrorail transit system "was not able to do what we asked them to do."

The rush-hour crashed sent more than 70 people to area hospitals and killed at least seven people. The three-decades-old Metro system shuttled tourists and local commuters from Washington to Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

There was conflicting information about the number of fatalities.

Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Tuesday that seven had died in the crash along a part of Metro system track that carries passengers from the District of Columbia into suburban Maryland. The District of Columbia Fire Department Web site announced early Tuesday morning that three bodies had been found in addition to the six fatalities reported earlier.

Fenty said two victims were hospitalized in critical condition.

Hersman said investigators expect to recover recorders from the train was struck, providing valuable information that might help determine why the crash occurred. However, the train triggered the collision was part of an old "thousand-series" fleet that was not equipped with the devices, she said at a news conference.

Earlier, Hersman told The Associated Press that the NTSB had warned in 2006 that there were safety problems related to trains rolling back on their tracks.

"When the train rolled back, the operator was not able to stop it," she said. Hersman said the NTSB recommended that a specific series of cars be phased out or retrofitted to make them more crashworthy.

The Metrorail transit system "was not able to do what we asked them to do," which was to either to retrofit the thousand-series or phase them out, she said. The NTSB considered the lack of action "unacceptable," she said.

Monday's crash was the worst in the history of Metrorail, which has shuttled tourists and federal workers to and from the nation's capital for more than three decades.

The only other fatal crash occurred on Jan. 13, 1982, when three people died as a result of a derailment beneath downtown. That was a day of disaster in the capital: Shortly before the subway crash, an Air Florida plane slammed into the 14th Street Bridge immediately after takeoff from Washington National Airport across the Potomac River. The plane crash, during a severe snowstorm, killed 78 people.

In January 2007, a subway train derailed in downtown Washington, sending 20 people to the hospital and prompting the rescue of 60 others from the tunnel. In November 2006, two Metro track workers were struck and killed by an out-of-service train. An investigation found that the train operator failed to follow safety procedures. Another Metro worker was struck and killed in May 2006.

Wow how tragic. Rest In Peace.

japanrocks said:

NYC's subway system is over 100 years old!

Terrible news.

At least now, hopefully there will be some $ to pay to the families. (not that that makes up for their loss)

a few years ago, 106 people died in a train accident here in Japan because the driver was in a hurry

http://www.absoluteastron...rail_crash
[Edited 6/25/09 0:33am]

Metro to inspect track sensors in wake of crash

WASHINGTON – The Washington-area mass transit system will inspect every stretch of its tracks as federal investigators work to determine whether problems found with a signaling system in one area could have contributed to this week's crash that killed nine people.

Metro General Manager John Catoe also said Thursday the agency will start rearranging its trains to put the oldest and structurally weakest rail cars in the middle, instead of at the ends, where they are more vulnerable.

Catoe said he ordered inspections of all 3,000 circuits, or sections beneath the track that include a signaling system. The signals provide critical information to passing trains such as when to stop or slow down. Tests by the National Transportation Safety Board indicated a problem with one of the circuits in the area of Monday's crash.

Officials said they wanted to take measures immediately and not wait until the NTSB completes its accident investigation.

"We have to act and we're taking action," Catoe said. He said Metro hoped to conclude its inspections in a couple of weeks, if not sooner.

Tests by the NTSB on Wednesday raised the possibility that trains passing through a 740-foot stretch where the collision occurred could have had trouble receiving signals to stop or slow down. Officials stopped short of saying whether the circuit was broken, refusing to elaborate on the "anomalies" that testers found. Five other stretches of track in the area of the crash near the Maryland state line showed no problems.

"Whether trains are operated in automatic or manual, these circuits are vital," said Debbie Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "We're particularly interested in the speed commands that might be sent from that circuit when there's a train standing on that circuit."

Investigators were planning to test the track with a six-car train.

An engineering professor who's studied transportation safety said that if sensors failed on the track, it could have contributed to Monday's crash. He emphasized, though, that catastrophic crashes usually can't be blamed on a single factor.

"If the sensors didn't work properly, it deprived (the train operator) of very vital information," said Najm Meshkati, professor of engineering at the University of Southern California. The operator, he said, "was the last layer of defense."

Since the crash, the NTSB has also criticized Metro for failing to revamp or replace its 1000-series rail cars after previous warnings by the agency. The striking train, which sustained most of the damage in Monday's crash, was made up of those cars, which date back to the 1970s. The cars are not as good at withstanding crashes as later models.

Catoe insisted Thursday that the cars were safe, but said the agency was in the process of putting the 1000-series cars in the middle of trains, and not on the ends, as an added precaution. Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said later it would not be possible to make that change in every case, but the agency will do it where they can.

The union representing Metro workers demanded that change on Wednesday.

Metro on Thursday reopened the two stations that had been closed since the crash, but only for rush hour. Trains were running along just one track, leaving the side damaged in the crash closed as the investigation continues.

A Washington couple who say their 15-year-old son was injured in the crash filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday against Metro, which is formally known as the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

In the lawsuit, Imhotep Yakub and Dawn Flanagan say their son, Davonne Flanagan, was a passenger in the striking train. They say he fractured his femur and suffered other injuries. The family is seeking $950,000 in damages.

The deadliest crash in the rail system's 33-year history occurred when a train plowed into another that was stopped. The moving train was operating in automatic mode, which means it was primarily controlled by a computer, although there is evidence the operator applied the emergency brake.

Since the crash, trains have been manually controlled as a precaution against computer problems. Catoe said trains will continue running manually until all the circuits are inspected and the agency is "100 percent sure the system is in 100 percent working condition."

Hersman said inspectors found 300 feet to 400 feet of rails that showed signs of emergency braking. Hersman also has said the emergency brake control on the moving train was found pushed down, though it's not clear how or when that happened. The operator of the oncoming train was among the dead.

Hersman said investigators hoped to interview the operator of the other train on Thursday, a day after his release from the hospital.

NTSB officials say their investigations can take more than a year.