The National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, investigates all railroad collisions in the United States and issues a report after each review. Since 1996, those analyses are online, including the 83-page detailed description of the 2008 Chatsworth Metrolink crash. As Patricia Nazario reports live from the crash, the horrific accident left 133 passengers injured and killed 25.
The deadly head-on collision between the Metrolink commuter rail and Santa Fe freight train happened on Friday, September 12, 2008 around 4:22 in the afternoon. About a month later, Congress enacted the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. At its core, the law requires that railroad operators implement Positive Train Control, or PTC, which would modernize current safety standards to GPS technology from the red-light safety system standardized about a 150 years ago. Initially, Congress set a December 2015 deadline. It’s now extended to December 2018.
The NTSB has advocated for PTC and its the GPS technology since the 1900s, and say it could have prevented several recent train wrecks, including the 2008 Chatsworth Metrolink crash. The NTSB is an independent agency of the U.S. Government that has investigated aviation, highway, marine, pipeline, and railroad accidents, as well as others related to the transportation of hazardous materials since 1967. Official NTSB reports from accidents since 1996 are online.
The Los Angeles Times keeps a list of those killed in the 2008 Metrolink Chatsworth crash on its website.
