SEATTLE (AP) — The deadly Amtrak train derailment in King County in happened because the engineer lost track of where he was on the route and was going more than twice the speed limit when he hit a curve, federal safety investigators said Tuesday.
The train derailed Dec. 18, 2017, near DuPont, killing three and injuring dozens. The derailment occurred on the train’s first paid passenger trip on a new route from Tacoma to Portland.
Investigators also blamed the transit agency Sound Transit for not sufficiently mitigating the danger of the sharp bend, Amtrak for not better training the engineer, Washington State DOT for not ensuring the route was safe before green-lighting a passenger train and the Federal Railroad Administration for using rail cars beneath regulatory standards.
“The engineer was set up to fail,” said NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt.
The train was going 78 mph when it rounded the curve. That’s 48 mph faster than the speed limit.
The engineer appeared to apply the brakes but did not put the brakes in emergency mode.
He told federal officials he was aware of the sharp curve — he’d operated the locomotive three times on that track and observed the route another 7-10 times — but lost track of where the train was on the route.