Moments before an Amtrak train flew off the tracks in Philadelphia last spring, killing eight people and injuring more than 200, the engineer at the controls moved the throttle to the maximum speed, according to federal records released Monday.
The biggest unanswered question remains: Why?
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The National Transportation Safety Board didn't even attempt to answer that question Monday, even as it disclosed reams of documents on the fatal May 12 derailment that hobbled rail service in the busy Northeastern Corridor and stoked the public debate about train-safety technology. The agency is not expected to make any conclusions about the derailment's cause until this spring.
The facts released Monday did nothing to dispel the idea that the crash was caused by human error, and they don't contain a "smoking gun," as one NTSB official observed earlier in the day. Most of the data underscore points already known — the Amtrak engineer's cellphone wasn't in use at the time of the crash, he had no known medical issues, he was well-respected among his colleagues, he wasn't particularly stressed, he didn't appear to be fatigued, and the train, tracks and signals weren't malfunctioning.
But the records allow the engineer, Brandon Bostian, to say in his own words that he has little recollection of what happened just before the crash.
"The only word, and I hesitate to use the word dream-like because it sounds like I was asleep and I don't believe that I was asleep at all," he said in the transcript of one interview with investigators. "But kind of a very foggy memory as in I don't have, the memory doesn't include much visual memory."
Based on the NTSB documents, though, Bostian appears to have sped into the curve where the derailment happened with the train's throttle pegged to maximum speed — 106 mph. That was more than twice the curve's designated speed of 50 mph. But exactly why Bostian did that is unclear.
Bostian told investigators that he had recently gotten Lasik surgery, but that it had gone well. He also mentioned that at night, the curve where the train derailed can be difficult to see until you're almost on it, so he uses other landmarks to tell him it's time to start slowing the train.
According to data in the NTSB records, the top allowed speed was 80 mph on the section of track just before the curve. But instead of beginning to brake, Bostian applied full throttle about 55 seconds before reaching the curve.
Other than a brief period when he pulled the throttle down one notch for two seconds before ratcheting it back up to the max, the train continued speeding into the curve. About three seconds before the train derailed, traveling at its maximum speed of 106 mph, Bostian slammed the emergency brakes. It slowed the train about 4 mph before cars tumbled off the tracks.
In an interview conducted soon after the accident, Bostian recalled few details around the crash itself, saying he remembered passing platforms in North Philadelphia, "turning on the bell, and the next thing that I remember is when I came to my senses I was standing up in the locomotive cab after the accident." But in an interview conducted in November, he's able to fill in a few more details, though he also says he "couldn't say with certainty that my memory is accurate."
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In the November interview, he describes heading into the 80-mph stretch of track going 70 mph, then says he "pushed the throttle forward in order to accelerate from 70 to 80. And I don't remember anything from that point until after the train was already in the curve."
He also describes memories of feeling like the train was listing, then hitting the emergency brakes — though he said his memory here is "very vague."
"I remember holding onto the controls tightly and feeling like, 'OK well this is it, I'm going over.' And so I tried to brace myself," he told investigators.
Right before the accident, Bostian had been concerned about a train from Philadelphia's SEPTA transit system whose engineer had just been injured when a projectile — a rock, or possibly even a bullet — broke his windshield. Bostian said he hadn't been particularly concerned about his own train being targeted with rocks, but he worried that people might be on the tracks trying to respond to the incident and wanted to make sure everyone knew his train was approaching.
Bostian said he was "slightly" concerned that his train might also get hit, but that he was "really concerned for the SEPTA engineer."
Other interviews with Amtrak workers on the train with Bostian praised him, saying he was "communicative," "knowledgeable" and "on top of his game."
Whatever the reason for the disaster — which, as long as Bostian's memory is faulty, may never be known — the carnage after the wreck was extensive.
Thomas O'Brien, the train's assistant conductor, recounted in the NTSB documents how he "went flying" once the train hit.
"I'm looking around and there's immediately more blood than made sense for me to be able to see so fast. I just thought, 'How are we all bleeding so much already?'" he said, according to an interview transcript. "And I'm looking at the walls and I'm looking at the floor and there's just blood and there's stuff everywhere."
