|
Train collision near Los Angeles kills 11
Police: Man who parked SUV on tracks will face murder charges
Thursday, January 27, 2005 Posted: 5:11 AM EST (1011 GMT)
Rescuers spent hours pulling the dead and injured from the twisted wreckage of the trains. At least 11 people died.
GLENDALE, California (CNN) -- A suicidal man will face murder charges after parking his vehicle on railroad tracks Wednesday, causing a commuter train collision that killed at least 11 people outside Los Angeles, officials said.
"This whole incident was started by a deranged individual who was suicidal," said Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams.
The suspect, identified as 25-year-old Juan Manuel Alvarez, got out of the Jeep Cherokee before impact and watched the collision, Adams said.
Alvarez, whose last known address was in Compton, California, was taken into custody near the scene and will face "at least 10 counts of murder," Adams said before the 11th victim was recovered.
A representative of the district attorney's office said prosecutors would decide on charges Thursday or Friday.
Before being arrested and placed on suicide watch, the suspect was treated for superficial wounds -- cuts to his wrist and chest --that were self-inflicted and not caused by the train wreck, Adams said.
"I think he was intent at that time of taking his own life, but changed his mind prior to the train actually striking his vehicle," Adams said.
Alvarez's sister-in-law, Maricela Amaya, told Telemundo TV that he separated from his wife, Carmelita, three months ago, according to The Associated Press. She said the wife obtained a court order to keep him away, but he had attempted to see his wife and son, AP reported.
"He was having problems with drugs and all that and was violent," Amaya was quoted as saying. "A few other times he went around as if he wanted to kill himself. I said, 'If you're going to kill yourself, go kill yourself far away.'"
Adams said Alvarez has an arrest record for unspecified drug violations and described the suspect as "distraught, remorseful, but cooperative."
"We're very confident that he is the correct individual," Adams said. "Not only through his own admissions, but we actually have a couple of witnesses that were on the train that actually saw him fleeing from the vehicle."
Of the 120 injured, 101 were assessed and released by any of five area hospitals, Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn said.
"We are in mourning today," he said, but added that it could have been worse. "When you saw the wreckage inside those cars, it's a miracle there weren't more people lost."
The crash occurred shortly after 6 a.m.
"It sounded like the train was dragging something across the tracks in front of it," said one passenger. "All of a sudden, the lights went out. The train jerked to a stop."
"It was terrible," said another. "I could hear people crying, people covered with blood. It was terrible. To get out of the train, we [had] to break the window and jump off."
Passenger Carol Smith, 50, who was unharmed, told Reuters she was on her way to work and had just stopped reading her newspaper.
"All of a sudden, the train pulls the brakes and jerks and the lights went out," she told Reuters. "I walked by a lot of people who were lying on the tracks and couldn't move."
A spokeswoman for the commuter line, Metrolink, said one of its trains hit the car on the railroad tracks, ran into another Metrolink train and crashed into a parked Union Pacific train.
Alvarez apparently changed his mind after driving onto the tracks, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to remove his vehicle, said Glendale Mayor Bob Yousefian.
"The train coming southbound collided with the Jeep, took the vehicle and put it into the undercarriage which, at that point, started the chain of events which caused all this horrible tragedy," he said.
Rescue operation
A massive rescue operation ensued. Chris Gray, chief of the Glendale Fire Department, said more than 75 agencies were involved in the rescue and recovery, including some from Pasadena and Burbank.
Videotape showed Metrolink passenger train cars on their sides with shattered windows and the metal sheeting peeled backward and crushed inward.
The footage also showed several overturned orange Union Pacific rail cars.
Immediately after the collision, people inside a nearby Costco ran to help. A small fire was quickly extinguished, a relief to emergency workers who worried it might ignite the diesel fuel.
Rescuers spent hours working to free the injured. Search-and-rescue teams used infrared cameras to locate victims and in some cases cut away twisted metal.
Hours after the crash, emergency workers could be seen climbing ladders to access the overturned train cars and remove a body.
At 5:30 p.m., authorities were still combing the wreckage for possible victims.
Police were notifying the relatives of nine male victims and one female victim late Wednesday afternoon.
"At this point, we're in a recovery mission, trying to make sure that, if there are any additional bodies at the scene, they are located," Adams said.
"There may be additional people missing," he said.
A law enforcement official identified one of the dead as Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy James Tutino, a 23-year veteran, who was on his way to work. The 47-year-old resident of Simi Valley is survived by his wife and four adult children, a spokesman said.
Adams said another victim was believed to be a Metrolink employee.
Because commuter trains are involved it is difficult to determine who the passengers are and how many had boarded, Gray said.
Each Metrolink train had three passenger cars and one diesel locomotive, a Metrolink spokesman said. The maximum speed in the area is 79 miles per hour, he said, but the trains were likely traveling slower due to their proximity to a nearby station.
Southbound Metrolink train No. 100, which originates in Moorpark and terminates at Union Station, has an average ridership of 200-250, according to the train line. Northbound Metrolink train No. 901, which originates in Union Station and terminates in downtown Burbank, carries from 30-50 passengers.
Metrolink is Southern California's regional commuter rail service and is in its 12th year of operation. It operates seven routes through a six-county, 512 route-mile network.
The National Transportation and Safety Board mobilized more than 100 investigators to work with local authorities investigating the incident, Adams said. The FBI also sent investigators to the site.
-----------------------------------
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
January 10, 2007
Rail Crash Roundup
A horrible incident occurred on the commuter rail system yesterday afternoon when a train slammed into a work crew replacing railroad ties in Woburn. According to the Globe report, two workers died, and one was critically injured.
The crew and the train were on a collision course:
MBTA officials said investigators are trying to determine why a track switching device was improperly positioned. The switch should have directed the commuter train on a track parallel to the one the workers were on, but instead sent the train straight into them.
Bad Transit and Charlie on the MBTA are already on the case. Bad Transit points fingers squarely at the MBTA and their commuter-rail contractor, Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad (MBCR), because of cuts in the safety budget. Obviously, whatever or whoever was supposed to keep the work crew and the train apart failed.
The MBTA brass suggests a dispatcher made a mistake and put the work crew and the train on the same track. That's entirely possible, but surely there are protocols in place in case of human error. No one wants their employees to die on the job. They want the side effects - lawsuits and bad PR - even less. Whatever the cause, this accident could have been avoided.
| 
