Local News

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / KCBS / AP / BCN) ― The National Transportation Safety Board was focusing on human error by a train driver, and not any mechanical problem, as the likely cause of a weekend collision between two San Francisco Municipal Railway light-rail trains that injured nearly 50 people, officials said Sunday.

NTSB investigators joined Muni transit officials on Sunday in interviewing the train drivers, passengers and witnesses, before holding an afternoon news conference to share their initial findings.

Ted Turpin, the lead investigator for the NTSB, said the operator of an L-Taraval train had put it into manual mode shortly before Saturday's crash at the West Portal Station — but officials did not yet know why.

If the train had been on automatic mode when it pulled into the station, the crash wouldn't have happened, said Turpin.

He added that the L-Taraval train was inspected and no brake or other mechanical problems were found.

But over the next three to five days, investigators also planned to focus on assessing the condition of the train tracks, signal systems and the structural integrity of the train cars involved in Saturday's crash, said NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson.

In addition, investigators were reviewing video footage from cameras that were in the station and on the train. And Turpin said they were looking into cell phone records to see if the operator was talking on his phone or texting when the crash happened.

It was a chaotic scene that unfolded about 2:50 p.m. Saturday when the westbound L-Taraval train, traveling at 20 to 23 mph, rear-ended a K-Ingleside train that was sitting at an outbound boarding platform at West Portal.

Investigators said it appeared the L-Taraval operator switched from auto to manual while he was still inside a tunnel near the station; the crash occurred 24 seconds after the switch was made.

The operator switched his controls from automatic to manual before he should have, Turpin said. Muni procedures dictatate that drivers are supposed to wait until they are in the station before switching.

In all, 48 people were taken to area hospitals with minor to serious injuries stemming from the crash.

The L-Taraval train operator was among the four people hospitalized with more serious injuries, but officials on Sunday said none of the injuries were considered life threatening.

The driver, who has not been named, was drug tested after the crash. He started as a bus driver with Muni in 1979 and has been a light rail operator since 2007.

Rescue crews found the wounded operator pinned inside his damaged compartment, said San Francisco Fire Lt. Ken Smith.

"He was in the front of the train, and part of it was pushed into him," Smith said. "Rescuers had to pry open the doors to get to him and assist him out of the light rail vehicle."

Smith said the driver told recuers he was having pains in the abdominal area.

In all, nearly 70 personnel from the San Francisco Fire Department, 15 ambulances and seven fire engines responded to the scene, Smith said. It took about 90 minutes to evacuate all 48 people, some bloodied and with broken noses, bruises and other injuries, to two hospitals.

Emergency officials said the scene at the West Portal station could have been a lot more chaotic, had it not been for the quick, and efficient response by firefighters.

"Everybody is trained in this. We separated them by the severity of the injury, they were triaged, tagged and transported," said SFFD Deputy Chief Pat Gardner. "It worked as smoothly as it could, and I'm very proud of the way they acted."

A day after the crash, cafes and shops in the West Portal neighborhood shopping district were still buzzing.

Ercan Bektas, 27, a waiter at the Squat and Gobble Cafe and Crepery, located at the intersection where the crash occurred, said he was startled by the sound.

"I was about to punch out, and heard something like a bomb," he said. Bektas said he ran outside to help people before rescue crews arrived.

"There was smoke coming out of one car. I went to help and I saw the car crushed," he said.

After the crash, witnesses said injured passengers, some with bloody wounds, sat on the station's boarding platform.

The most seriously injured were treated by rescue workers at a triage center, then taken on stretchers to waiting vehicles and whisked to hospitals.

On Sunday, the tunnel where the accident occurred was clear, rail service had resumed and there were no signs of investigators at the scene.

Scott Aguiar, a cafe manager, said the crash was the hot topic in the quiet little shopping district.

"People are talking about how MUNI is probably going to raise the fares again because of the upcoming lawsuits from the crash," he said.

As the investigation continued Sunday, at least one Bay Area transportation official concluded that the crash was likely avoidable.

Rod Diridon, head of the Minetta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University, said the U.S. is long overdue in installing the costly electronics system called "Positive Train Control" or PTC.

"The PTC has the effect of stopping a car automatically when the car goes through a red signal," said Diridon.

President Bush last year signed a bill calling for PTC installation, but the process will be done over a period of years.

"In carrying billions and billions of riders since 1964, the Japanese high speed rail system has never had one person killed," said Diridon. "It's the same with the French systems which have been operating since 1980."

PTC legislation was the result of a deadly Metro Link crash in Los Angeles last year.

Rail safety organizations claim that over a 12-year period in the U.S., there have been several thousand preventable rail crashes.

The NTSB's Turpin said the full investigation into the Muni crash was expected to take 9 months to a year.

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