Days after Thursday morning’s commuter train crash in Hoboken, N.J., federal investigators are still unable to access critical information about the train’s operation leading up to the accident.
The inbound New Jersey Transit train rammed into the bumping post at the end of the track and smashed into the the wall of the station, partially collapsing the canopy structure above the train platform.
The accident killed one person on the train platform and injured more than 100 others.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie appeared Sunday to blame the train’s engineer for coming into the station too fast, while also cautioning against speculation about the crash’s cause.
10 mph Appropriate speed for trains approaching Hoboken station
“The train came into the station too fast,” Christie told Fox News on Sunday. “We don’t know why that is.”
Train’s engineer, Thomas Gallagher, a 29-year New Jersey Transit employee, told investigators that he had no memory of the accident, but also said that he approached the station at the appropriate speed, 10 mph.
Only the train’s data recorder knows for sure.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said Sunday that it is not safe for them to retrieve the device, which is trapped in the front of the train, depriving them of accurate measurements of train speed and braking.
Right now, it is very dangerous to get in there.
Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairman, NTSB
“Right now, it is very dangerous to get in there,” Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairman of the NTSB, told reporters on Sunday.
Dinh-Zarr said a second data recorder in the locomotive at the rear of the train was not operating at the time of the crash and produced no data to aid the investigation.
The train was also equipped with a forward-facing camera, but that footage remains inaccessible in the front of the train.
Dinh-Zarr said that the NTSB had surveyed the crash scene with a drone, its first such use of the device in a rail incident.
Curtis Tate: 202-383-6018, @tatecurtis