NTSB opens docket on 2015's Calif. Metrolink crash
The accident happened when a commuter train carrying 51 passengers and three crewmembers, collided with a 2005 Ford F450 utility service truck towing a two-axle utility trailer.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened the public docket as part of its ongoing investigation of a Metrolink commuter train accident in Oxnard, Calif. in 2015.
The docket contains more than 2,200 pages of information including factual group reports, interviews, photographs and other investigative materials.
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The accident happened Feb. 24, 2015, at about 5:44 a.m., when a commuter train carrying 51 passengers and three crewmembers, collided with a 2005 Ford F450 utility service truck towing a two-axle utility trailer. The truck driver had turned right from South Rice Avenue onto the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) track and the truck became lodged on the track 80 feet west of the grade crossing. The train consisted of a cab/coach car in the lead, three coach cars, and a locomotive at the rear. Thirty-two people aboard the train were injured, while the train engineer died. The truck driver exited his vehicle and ran from the scene prior to the crash; he sustained minor injuries that were unrelated to the crash sequence.
The public docket contains only factual information collected by NTSB investigators, and does not provide analysis, findings, recommendations or probable cause determinations. No conclusions about how or why an accident occurred should be drawn from the docket. The docket opening marks a transition in the investigative process where the majority of facts needed for the investigation have been gathered and the NTSB can move ahead with analysis of those facts.
Opening the docket affords those with a need and desire for its contents the opportunity review what factual information has been gathered about the accident. Any analysis, findings, recommendations, or probable cause determinations related to the accident will be issued by the NTSB at a later date.
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