Metrolink Collision Toll Now 24 - Engineer Ignored a Red Signal

UPDATE: Death toll now 25 - Engineer may have been texting just prior to the crash.

The death toll in yesterday's Metrolink collision has now jumped to 24, and an accident cause has been confirmed by Metrolink officials:

Metrolink officials said today that an engineer on their commuter train that collided head-on Friday afternoon with a freight train -- killing at least 24 and critically injuring dozens more -- ignored a red light telling him to stop.

Had the engineer obeyed the signal, the accident would not have occurred, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said.

"We want to be honest in our appraisal," she said at the scene of the crash, as rescue workers, now in recovery mode, continued to use heavy machinery to untangle the twisted remains of the most damaged passenger car."

Barring any information from the NTSB, we believe our engineer failed to stop and that was the cause of the accident," she said, referring to the National Transportation Safety Board. "Of course, it is your worst fear that this could happen, that the ability for human error to occur could come into the scenario."

She said the engineer, whom she did not identify, was a subcontractor with Veolia Transportation and a former Amtrak employee. Tyrrell said she believed that he had been killed in the crash but that she could not confirm the death. She said she did not know why a series of safety measures and controls along the way, including communication with dispatchers, failed.

That was my suspicion from the start, but I didn't want to point any fingers since there were a couple of other possibilities.

That's a gutsy move on the part of Metrolink to admit liability so early in the process. I'm sure their lawyers are pulling their hair out over that statement (not to mention the lawyers for Veolia).

We can all be grateful that the accident did not occur a couple hundred yards further north because at that point the track runs through a long tunnel. If the accident had occurred up there the death toll would likely be over a hundred because of fire and smoke that would have been trapped in the tunnel. The job of rescuing survivors would have been significantly more complicated, if not nearly impossible.

The whole thing was avoidable - what a shame.

UPDATE: Jack Dunphy, a police officer with LAPD who blogs under that name, reported on a text message he got from one of the first responders:

A cell phone was ringing on one of the dead bodies under tarp. Probably family calling to see if ok. Heartbreaking.

UPDATE: 23 hours after the wreck the last body has been removed from the train. It looks like the death count will hold at 24, but that could change. There were 40 victims listed as critical at the scene and who were flown to trauma centers all over Los Angeles County. The quick work of the rescuers and the hospitals should be applauded.