Head-on collision in Los Angeles, California
The 2008 Chatsworth train collision occurred at 4:22:23 p.m. PDT (23:22:23 UTC) on September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific Railroad freight train and a Metrolink commuter rail passenger train collided head-on in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States.
The scene of the collision was a curved section of single track on the Metrolink Ventura County Line just east of Stoney Point. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigated the cause of the collision, the Metrolink train ran through a red signal before entering a section of single track where the opposing freight train had been given the right of way by the train dispatcher. The NTSB blamed the Metrolink train's engineer, 46-year-old Robert M. Sanchez, for the collision, concluding that he was distracted by text messages he was sending while on duty. Sanchez was killed in the accident.
This mass casualty event brought a massive emergency response by both the city and county of Los Angeles, but the nature and extent of physical trauma taxed the available resources. First responding officer Tom Gustofson described the wreck as “beyond human description”. Response included California Emergency Mobile Patrol Search and Rescue (CEMP) as a first responding unit requested by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). With 25 deaths, this was the deadliest collision in Metrolink's history. Many survivors remained hospitalized for an extended period.
Lawyers quickly began filing claims against Metrolink. The collision launched and reinvigorated public debate on a range of topics including public relations, emergency management, and safety, which has driven various regulatory and legislative actions, including the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
Collision.
Metrolink commuter train #111, consisting of a EMD F59PH locomotive (SCAX 855) pulling three Bombardier BiLevel Coaches, departed Union Station in downtown Los Angeles at 3:35 p.m. PDT (22:35 UTC) heading westbound to Moorpark in suburban Ventura County. Approximately forty minutes later, it departed the Chatsworth station with 222 people aboard, and had traveled approximately when it collided head-on with an eastbound Union Pacific local freight train. The freight train was led by two EMD SD70ACe locomotives, #8485 and #8491, and was pulling 17 freight cars. The Metrolink locomotive telescoped rearward into the passenger compartment of the first passenger car and caught fire. All three locomotives, the leading Metrolink passenger car, and ten freight cars were derailed, and both lead locomotives and the passenger car fell over.
The collision occurred after the Metrolink passenger train engineer, 46-year-old Robert M. Sanchez, failed to obey a red stop signal that indicated it was not safe to proceed into the single track section. The train dispatcher's computer at a remote control center in Pomona did not display a warning before the collision according to the NTSB. Metrolink initially reported that the dispatcher tried in vain to contact the train crew to warn them; but the NTSB contradicted this report, saying the dispatcher noticed a problem only after the collision and was notified by the passenger train's conductor first.
Both trains were moving toward each other at the time of the collision. At least one passenger on the Metrolink train reported seeing the freight train moments before impact, coming around the curve. The conductor of the passenger train, who was in the rear car and was injured in the collision, estimated that his train was traveling at before it suddenly came to a dead stop after the collision. The NTSB reported that the passenger train was traveling at . The freight train was traveling at about the same speed after its engineer triggered the emergency air brake only two seconds before impact, while the Metrolink engineer never applied the brakes on his train.
Location.
The collision occurred after the freight train emerged from the tunnel #28, just south of California State Route 118 near the intersection of Heather Lee Lane and Andora Avenue near Chatsworth Hills Academy. The collision was in Chatsworth, a neighborhood of Los Angeles located at the northwestern edge of the San Fernando Valley. The trains collided on the Metrolink Ventura County Line, part of the Montalvo Cutoff, opened by the Southern Pacific Company on March 20, 1904, to improve the alignment of its Coast Line. Metrolink has operated the line since purchasing it in the 1990s from Southern Pacific (now owned by Union Pacific), which retained trackage rights for freight service.
Railroad physical characteristics.
Both trains were on the same section of single track that runs between the Chatsworth station (which is double tracked) through the Santa Susana Pass. The line returns to double track again as it enters the Simi Valley. Three tunnels under the pass are only wide enough to support a single track, and it would be very costly to widen them. This single-track section carries 24 passenger trains and 12 freight trains each day.
The line's railway signaling system is designed to ensure that trains wait on the double-track section while a train is proceeding in the other direction on the single track. The signal system was upgraded in the 1990s to support Metrolink commuter rail services, and Richard Stanger, the executive director of Metrolink in its early years of 1991 to 1998, said the system had functioned without trouble in the past. The Metrolink train would normally wait in the Chatsworth station for the daily Union Pacific freight train to pass before proceeding, unless the freight train was already waiting for it at Chatsworth. The location was not protected by catch points.
Timeline.
The events on September 12, 2008 leading up to the collision (all times local):
Aftermath.
Emergency response.
The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) initially dispatched a "physical rescue" assignment at a residential address near the scene in response to a 9-1-1 emergency call from the home. The crew arrived at the address four minutes later, just before 4:30 p.m. PDT and accessed the scene by cutting through the backyard fence. Upon arrival, the captain on the scene immediately called for an additional five ambulances, then 30 fire engines, and after reaching the wreck he called for every heavy search and rescue unit in the city. Hundreds of emergency workers were eventually involved in the rescue and recovery efforts, including 250 firefighters. Two Los Angeles city firefighters received medals for risking their lives to enter a confined space with smoky and potentially toxic air, without their air bottles, to rescue one of the freight train crew members. LAPD Devonshire Division patrol officers arrived on scene shortly after the first LAFD Engine Company. As firefighters were putting out the flames of the burning diesel fuel that had spilled out of the freight engine, patrol officers entered the damaged, smoke-filled train cars to rescue/administer first aid to several passengers who were stranded on the upper decks due to their critical injuries. Two police officers received medals, and two others received commendations and were credited with potentially saving the lives of several injured passengers.
The event was operationally identified as the "Chatsworth Incident" and was reclassified as a "mass casualty incident". All six of LAFD's air ambulances were mobilized, along with six additional helicopters from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The helicopters were requested under a mutual aid arrangement.
A review of the emergency response and the on-site and hospital care was initiated by Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe immediately after the event, and was expected to take 90 days to complete.
Casualties.
A total of 25 people died in the collision, including engineer Sanchez and two victims who died at hospitals in the days following the crash. This event is the deadliest railway collision in Metrolink's history, and the worst in the United States since the Big Bayou Canot train disaster in 1993.
A total of 135 others were reported injured, 46 of them critically, with 85 of the injured transported to 13 hospitals and two transported themselves. Air ambulance helicopters medevaced 40 patients. LAFD Captain Steve Ruda reported that the high number of critically injured passengers taxed the area's emergency response capabilities, and patients were distributed to all 12 trauma centers in Los Angeles County. Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills treated 17 patients, more than any other hospital.
Captain Ruda said his firefighters had never seen such carnage. Austin Walbridge, a train passenger, told a TV news reporter that the interior of the train was "bloody, a mess. Just a disaster. It was horrible." Emergency responders described the victims as having crush-type injuries. Dr. Amal K. Obaid, a trauma surgeon who practices at USC University Hospital where several victims were treated, described their injuries in more detail, "They have head injuries, multiple facial fractures, chest trauma, collapsed lungs, rib fractures, pelvic fractures, leg and arm fractures, cuts in the skin and soft tissue. Some have blood in the brain."
The Los Angeles County Coroner set up an air-conditioned tent that functioned as a temporary morgue at the site. One off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer was among the confirmed deaths, as was the Metrolink train's engineer, an employee of Veolia Transport, a contracted operator of Metrolink.
One of the passengers who died was a survivor of the 2005 Glendale train crash.
Another had been commuting by train since Metrolink's inception in 1992.
Many victims were residents of suburban Simi Valley and Moorpark on their way home from work in the Los Angeles area.
The four other crew members of the two trains survived.
The conductor and engineer of the freight train were trapped inside the lead locomotive while it was engulfed in flames; the firefighters who rescued the pair found them banging on the thick glass windshield, unable to escape. The freight crew also had a brakeman riding in the second locomotive who was injured in the crash.
The search for victims came to an end shortly after 14:30 PDT on September 13, approximately 22 hours after the collision.
Service disruptions.
The crash disrupted service on the "Pacific Surfliner" and the "Coast Starlight". Amtrak canceled service on the "Pacific Surfliner" between San Luis Obispo and Union Station in Los Angeles and Amtrak Thruway buses transported "Coast Starlight" passengers from Union Station to Santa Barbara to board the trains. Metrolink service on the Ventura County Line was interrupted north of Chatsworth, and all service resumed four days after the crash.
Investigation.
Preliminary investigation controversy.
Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell disclosed the day after the crash that a preliminary investigation of dispatch records and computers showed the engineer of the Metrolink passenger train failed to stop his train for a red railway signal, which indicated his train did not have authority to proceed on the main track . She was quoted as saying, "We don't know how the error happened, but this is what we believe happened. We believe it was our engineer who failed to stop at the signal." Tyrrell said that if the engineer had obeyed the signal, the crash would not have occurred. However Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metrolink board member Don Knabe said it was premature to blame the engineer, speculating that "there could always be a technical malfunction where ... there was a green light both ways."
After a Metrolink board meeting two days after her remarks, Tyrrell resigned. Tyrrell stated that she quit because a Metrolink Board statement called her announcement premature and inappropriate; she maintained that it was proper to get out in front of the story before the NTSB took over the investigation. She stated that she asked for and received authorization to make the comments from David Solow, Metrolink's chief executive. Solow confirmed that he did give authorization, but said that, in hindsight, he should not have given permission. After her resignation, some good government proponents praised Tyrrell for her candor, including the chief public advocate with California Common Cause. The "Los Angeles Times" also published an editorial by columnist Patt Morrison sympathetic to Tyrrell's position, in which she says, "I am unclear of the concept of how the truth can somehow be premature. The truth is the truth."
Official investigation.
The NTSB led the official investigation to determine the probable cause, but NTSB officials had not commented on the crash prior to the Metrolink statement. In a subsequent press conference at the scene two hours after Tyrrell's comments, an NTSB official cautioned that the cause of the collision was still under investigation. The NTSB studied the data from the train event recorders, which had been recovered by NTSB investigators working at the scene. The Metrolink train had two data recorders, one