Philadelphia/New York: A portrait of the engineer at the helm of a speeding Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia began to emerge on Thursday as the man’s lawyer said his client could not remember the crash, and rescuers pulled an eighth body from the wreckage.
With the engineer facing intense scrutiny over his role in the accident, Philadelphia police said they launched a criminal investigation into Tuesday’s crash of the New York bound train. The locomotive and all seven cars jumped the tracks while barreling into a curve at more than 100 miles per hour (160 km per hour), twice the speed limit. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the engineer, identified as Brandon Bostian, 32, fully engaged the train’s emergency braking system seconds before the wreck.
But his attorney, Robert Goggin, said Bostian was unable to recall hitting the brakes or much else about the derailment, which left a trail of twisted metal and human carnage along the tracks, and injured more than 200 people.
