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Six Dead in Amtrak Derailment in Philadelphia; Mayor Nutter Gives Update on Train Crash; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 13, 2015 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:06] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin with breaking developments out of Philadelphia. Any minute now the mayor, Michael Nutter, will speak about that deadly Amtrak train derailment. We'll bring that to you when it happens.

Daylight, though, is bringing a horrifying view of the deadly Amtrak train derailment. The violent impact throwing one car onto its roof. Several tilting to the side. Others zigzagged across the tracks.

We're learning that a midshipman from the U.S. Naval Academy is among the six people killed in that accident. 149 people were hurt. Pictures from inside the train show passengers tossed around. Some crawling their way to safety. Other bloody victims needing to be carried away. Doctors treating a lot of fractures, they tell us.

We have a rare road reconstruction expert Robert Halstead. He'll join us shortly. Rene Marsh and Chris Cuomo are at the crash site so let's head out there right now and begin with Chris Cuomo.

Good morning, Chris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, NEW DAY (voice-over): A New York City bound Amtrak passenger train from Washington, D.C., over 200 people on board, derailing, rolling on its side on the tracks outside of Philadelphia. Seven cars in disarray twisted and torn like tinfoil.

MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER (D), PHILADELPHIA: It is an absolute disastrous mess. Never seen anything like this in my life.

CUOMO: At least six lost their lives. Over 100 hospitalized. Passengers described the horrors as chairs and bags go flying in the air.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This huge red suitcase just came flying at me. Our train was actually on its side. There's many injured people on the train and they're very, very upset.

CUOMO: This surveillance video overlooking the track shows the moment of impact and this video highlighting a rescue in progress. Those lucky enough to walk away in a state of shock. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can see the blood on people's faces. They can't

move. Luckily, like, I'm still here. I'm still walking. I got really lucky.

CUOMO: First responders in the dark of night combing the area for injured and those unaccounted for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never seen anything so devastating. They are in pretty bad shape. You can see that they've completely, completely derailed from the track.

CUOMO: Helicopters hover as rescuers sift through the wreckage. Why all this happened still unclear. Amtrak is cooperating with the NTSB which launched a go-team to assist in the investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You always, like, read about things or see this on the news, like, a plane crashes, a train derails, but you never actually think it's going to happen to you. It did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Well, this is still a very active scene and right now we're getting ready for a press conference. Authorities are going to come out and give a briefing on what the latest is, how many of the passengers have been unaccounted for, and in what way, and then we're starting to get to these bigger questions. Why did this happen? Was it a component of speed, of human error? Was there something intentional?

Those questions remain to be open, as do the larger considerations of whether or not this is something that could have been avoided. There are a lot of criticisms on the ground here about the nature of the infrastructure. This is not the first time we've had a derailment with Amtrak. We've had many. People say too many.

COSTELLO: People do say too many. These statistics from "The Washington Post." Just this year alone in 2015, nine derailments on Amtrak. That's way above the number from 2012 when there were only two.

Maybe Mayor Nutter will address that. We don't know. But we are awaiting his presence behind those microphones. I know Rene Marsh is there on the scene, too. I want to go out to her right now to talk about the NTSB, and how investigators are handling this crash site.

Good morning, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We do know that the NTSB, they are on the ground here and the hotbed of activity is happening right behind me. This is where the staging ground is for this -- what is right now a recovery effort. And so I got off the phone with about 45 minutes ago and their focus now is essentially documenting the scene and paying very close attention to the tracks where this all happened.

Of course they are also going to want to get those event recorders. I did ask if they have secured them as yet but could not get a clear answer about that. Of course as Chris mentioned, there will be a briefing here that should get under way in a matter of minutes and NTSB says that they, too, will be a part of this. We know the mayor will be here and now the NTSB telling me that they will join the mayor as well.

So I don't know that the NTSB will at this point be ready to give any hard information about the investigation. It's pretty early but they probably will give us procedure and that procedure is what will they be looking at and we do know as we've been saying they're going to want to talk to the people who were in charge of operating this train.

They want to know, did any of these individuals notice anything strange with the train? Did it not respond to the brakes perhaps? If that was the case, they're going to want to know that. They'll also want to know about this schedule, the day of, the day before. They'll ask them those sort of questions.

[10:05:18] And then like I said, they will look at potential mechanical issues. Not only with the train itself but any problems that perhaps the tracks may have caused for this train.

COSTELLO: All right. Rene Marsh, you stick around.

I want to bring in Robert Halstead now. He's a railroad reconstruction expert.

And Robert, before we begin speaking, we are expecting this news conference to begin at any moment. So I may have to interrupt you. So I apologize in advance. But I'd just like to ask you this question. From all you have seen, what do you suppose -- Robert disappeared. Do we still have him? We lost Robert.

Let's go back out to Rene Marsh and talk more about NTSB.

I know speed may have been a factor in this accident, Rene. What are investigators on the scene telling you, if anything, about that?

MARSH: They won't go that far just not yet. We do expect that after they're able to download that information from the recorders they're going to be very revealing as far as how fast this train was going and what the speed limit was. We know that this train is capable of going some hundred miles per hour. It could be a little bit over that. But when you are in an area such as this which I know it's a bit skewed because it's shoulder to shoulder media right here. But you know, you look across the street. There's a business.

There are homes down this block here. So this is a residential, this is a commercial area, and when you have a situation like this, there is usually a speed limit. So in theory this train should not have been going a hundred miles per hour in this area. Was it? We don't know. That is all information that no doubt the investigators will get to the bottom of. There's no question about that. They will know how fast this train was going. They will know, was it going too fast for that curve. Many passengers onboard said that is the moment that things went

terribly wrong is when it was right along that curve and I'll tell you, this section, the northeast corridor, we've been talking about it all morning. The busiest when you talk about just wreck in the number of trains. This stretch of the northeast corridor, which essentially goes from Washington, D.C. all the way up to Boston, they see some 2200 trains on this stretch alone.

So it tells you this is a very well used stretch of track so they're going to want to look at was it in good condition? Was there any deterioration? That's also something that investigators are going to be curious about -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Rene, you stand by. I have Robert Halstead. He's back.

So, Robert, thanks for joining me. Again, he's a railroad reconstruction expert. From what you've seen so far, Robert, how do you suppose this accident happened?

ROBERT HALSTEAD, RAILROAD RECONSTRUCTION EXPERT: Well, we can't really draw any conclusions from what we have at present. I can tell you that the investigation in general is going to look at a number of functional areas. That's going to be human factors, track signal and possible equipment issues. A number of event recorders that are present on a train are going to be downloaded and analyzed. And in particular if we may have had human factors related issue, that data should shed a lot of light on whether or not that can be ruled in or out.

COSTELLO: Robert, we're looking at a picture of the second car of this train. And as you can see, it doesn't even resemble a train car any longer. It looks completely incinerated. What do you suppose happened?

HALSTEAD: Well, as an investigator arriving at the scene, when I see that kind of devastation, I could immediately draw a conclusion that this was likely a higher speed derailment and collision rather than lower speed. For instance, if you have 20 to 30-mile-per-hour derailment or collision, you just don't have the amount of kinetic energy necessary to do this kind of damage.

COSTELLO: So it appears that somehow this train car caught on fire. Is that what happened?

HALSTEAD: That I don't know. What I do know is that the train was electrically powered through 12,000 volts from overhead wire depending on what kind of circuit protection was present and whether or not it blew would determine whether or not we had any kind of ignition source on the train.

COSTELLO: A train car is not the easiest in normal times to get out of. How -- I mean, should -- what kind of evacuation process is put into place on these trains?

HALSTEAD: Usually the railroad will coordinate with local and city entities and practice on a reasonably regular basis how to pull people out of derailed trains. Trains have windows that can be kicked out. They have obviously doors that can be opened. EMS can cut holes in the side or the roof as necessary to pull people.

[10:10:17] COSTELLO: The first car remained upright. That's where the engineer and the conductor are. That the first car remained upright and the second car was devastated, I think the -- let's see, the third car is on its side as was the third and the fourth. The fifth, sixth and seventh car remained upright but of course they derailed. What does that tell you, if anything?

HALSTEAD: It is a bit unusual to have the lead unit not sustain as heavy as damage as trailing cars. That would tell me that perhaps the train derailed and jackknifed into something else that was adjacent and large. That could have been a (INAUDIBLE) tower or it could have been a standing train of some kind.

COSTELLO: So as investigators reconstruct this accident, how long do you think that might take?

HALSTEAD: The investigation is going to continue at least through today. You can't really begin until you're certain that all of the people have been rescued or otherwise accounted for. This line is going to be out of service probably for another 24 hours at least, if not 36.

COSTELLO: So just tell us the next steps. Like as soon as they account for all of the passengers aboard, and I know that they have not yet sadly, but what will be the first things they do?

HALSTEAD: The next step would be for NTSB to secure the scene for forensic purposes. All EMS and all fire people will leave the scene. NTSB will begin by mapping the scene usually with a 3-D scanner to produce a complete 3-D representation of the wreckage as it currently exists. Then you have a number of functional teams from FRA. They will each begin to do their own work in unison. You have human factors group. You have a track group.

You have a signal group. And you also have an equipment group. And they will all begin doing their own thing in unison to try and rule in or rule out certain potential aspects of causation.

COSTELLO: All right. Robert Halstead, thank you for your insight. It was so helpful.

And again, we're expecting this news conference with Philadelphia's mayor to begin at any moment. I got to take a break. I'll be right back with more in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. Back to Philadelphia. We understand that Mayor Nutter is about to approach the microphones. You can see him walking with a large contingent of people toward those microphones right now. He's expected to give us a briefing on this Amtrak derailment. We understand from some family members that all people are not

accounted for as of yet. Especially the Jacobs family is asking for help. All right. Let's listen.

NUTTER: Is everyone ready? All right. We have a number of updates. Thank you for your patience. As we indicated last night and this will probably be standard operating procedure for some time. There is preliminary information. This is an ongoing investigation. There are some things we know. There are many things we do not know at this time. And we will not speculate on any of those things as you well know.

[10:15:07] First, let me introduce you to a few of our partners who are here with us now. As I mentioned to you earlier this morning, we were anticipating the arrival of the National Transportation Safety Board. Their members are on the ground now. And Board Member Robert Sumwalt -- Sumwalt, rather, I'm sorry. And Vice Chairperson Dinh- Zarr.

For Amtrak, Board Chairman Anthony Coscia, Amtrak VP of Operations D.J. Stadtler, chief of Amtrak Police, Chief Hanson, and Deputy Chief Trugman.

On the NTSB side, they have approximately seven personnel on the ground with more personnel coming. They are represented in the form of investigator in charge, the chief of railroad division, that would be Mike Flannigan and Georgetta Gregory respectively. Mechanical investigator, signal investigator, track investigator, operations investigator, and human performance investigator.

We have full cooperation from all the agencies, of course, who were here last night. Philadelphia Fire Department, police department, Department of Homeland Security within the police department and other federal agencies working with us. SEPTA police as well as a number of other agencies.

This is a fully coordinated operation. Everyone understands their role. We train for these kinds of incidents, although every one of these incidents, and this is a tragedy, are very different.

Again from last night, we can only confirm that unfortunately we have deceased. We have transported now hundreds of people to various hospitals. And Sam Phelps can give you more details in that regard. We also need to get out information about how people can contact or find out about any of the individuals who were on the train and to the extent that we have information about them. Obviously they'll get that information as well.

Sam Phelps is going to come up and give you some of that information. Then you'll hear from NTSB, their representative, as well as Amtrak. We'll come back with any wrap-up information. Open up to questions. We'll answer what we can answer. Everything still at this point, 12 plus hours into this tragic event, is still preliminary information and subject to change.

With that, Sam Phelps, director of Emergency Management for the city of Philadelphia. Sam?

SAM PHELPS, DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, PHILADELPHIA: Thanks, Mayor. There's a few things I want to go over. Our focus today is to gather all of the patient data that we have. We're dealing with lots of different types of manifests. One from the railroad and then also from our hospital community.

Our hospitals treated over 200 patients last night and this morning. We are in the process of making sure that everybody is accounted for so we have a couple of things that we need help with. One, if you are looking for somebody or need information about somebody, please call Amtrak's 1-800 number. That's 1-800-523-9101. Again, 1-800-523-9101. If you were on the train and are doing well, please call in and report that to Amtrak so that we can link that data together.

We do have a friends-and-relatives center open at 3400 Frankfurt Avenue. We're going to keep that open for the bulk of today but we will eventually be transitioning to a full family assistance center operation that Amtrak will be running and that will be located at a hotel in center city. More information will be coming on that. So again please share information with us so that we can do our job making sure that everybody is accounted for.

Thanks.

NUTTER: Thank you, Sam. Board Member Sumwalt will now speak on behalf of NTSB. Board member?

ROBERT SUMWALT, BOARD MEMBER, NTSB: Mayor Nutter, thank you very much. My name is Robert Sumwalt. That's S-U-M-W-A-L-T. And as Mayor Nutter said, I'm a board member with the National Transportation Safety Board. And we have had investigators arriving on scene between 5:00 and 6:00 -- between 4:00 and 5:00 this morning. And will continue to be arriving from Washington throughout the -- throughout the morning.

Certainly before I go any further, I'd like to express our sincere condolences for all of those who have been affected by this tragedy. Our sincere condolences and our thoughts and our prayers go out to all of them.

As Mayor Nutter said, we brought a multidisciplinary team in here that will be covering a number of issues. We're looking at the track, the train signals, the operation of the train, the mechanical condition of the train, human performance. We are setting up a multidisciplinary investigation to try and understand the factors that led to this accident.

[10:20:10] In addition, we've brought in experts from the NTSB's Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance who will be assisting those family members who've been affected by this tragedy. We will be holding an organizational meeting at noon today. That is where we establish parties to the investigation and establish our investigative protocols, and I can tell you that the Federal Railroad Administration will be a part of our investigation. We will work very closely with them. We'll work closely with Amtrak,

as well as the city of Philadelphia. We will be providing -- my goal is to provide you with factual information as we have it and we do plan to be able to hold a press briefing later this afternoon. I would encourage you to follow us at Twitter and our handle is @NTSB. And my goal is to be able to provide you with factual information as we -- as we learn it.

As Mayor Nutter said, we will not be speculating while we're here. We have a lot of work that needs to be done. But we will be providing you information as we learn it. I would like to thank all of the first responders. I can tell you firsthand that we do have a good relationship with the mayor's office. We worked with Mayor Nutter's office in a Philadelphia -- in a duck boat accident that occurred in July of 2010.

We've got a good working relationship and we appreciate all the courtesies and assistance that you're providing. So I'll step aside and back to Mayor, Nutter. Thank you.

NUTTER: Additionally as board member indicated because of the great work of the Philadelphia Fire Department and Jesse Wilson is in command, the fire department is in charge of this scene, as well as support from the Philadelphia Police Department working with NTSB, the -- whatever is comparable as we know it often referred to as a black box, that has been recovered.

It is now in the Amtrak Operations Center in Delaware for analysis. We have no information from that particular device at all because it is currently being analyzed by the experts.

Now we'll hear from Amtrak board member and board chairman, Anthony Coscia.

ANTHONY COSCIA, AMTRAK BOARD MEMBER AND BOARD CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mayor.

Let me first start by saying how deeply saddened we all are at Amtrak for the loss of life that occurred on train 188 in North Philadelphia last evening. We -- our first and major priority will be our customers and our employees who have been affected by this tragedy. We've established an 800 number which I know has been mentioned and we are in the process right now of standing up a family assistance center here in Philadelphia.

A thorough investigation will take place from this incident led by the NTSB and Amtrak will do everything in its power to assist in that investigation and has brought every resource in the company's ability to support that effort.

This is the Amtrak family. We are very saddened by what's occurred and we'll do everything in our power to work with the mayor's office, the NTSB, and all authorities to do everything possible at dealing with this tragedy. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Sir, could you spell your name? COSCIA: C-O-S --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On the mike. Can you spell your name on the mike?

COSCIA: C-O-S-C-I-A. Thank you.

NUTTER: I think as you can see given the level of representation I want to first and foremost thank the NTSB sending a board member here which I know, of course, is part of their standard protocol but they have arrived in a tremendously timely fashion. Having the board chair and other personnel but the board chairman of Amtrak on scene again demonstrates the level of concern and commitment that Amtrak is demonstrating, as well as NTSB.

All of our other partners who are here on site again the level of coordination here is superior and we will continue to do all that we can until we are assured that we've accounted for all of the people we believe were on that train.

With all of those members having spoken lastly on behalf of the entire city of Philadelphia and other individuals that I've talked to or have communicated with, Mayor Muriel Bowser in Washington, D.C. who I talked to last night. Potential Washington, D.C. residents being on that train, and certainly possible as it was a Washington started train to New York City as well as communicated with Mayor Bill de Blasio in New York City as well since that was the termination point with an expectation that there would have been New York City residents as well.

[10:25:10] On behalf of 1.5 million people here in the city of Philadelphia, we also express our deepest sorrow. We will do everything we can to assist families who have loved ones on that particular train and whatever their circumstance or condition. But certainly with the six confirmed deceased, we are heartbroken at what has happened here. We've not experienced anything like this in modern times.

And we will get to the bottom of it and figure out what happened, why it happened, but that will take some time. With that, we'll be glad to try to answer any questions that you might have.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How many people are unaccounted for right now?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is anyone still missing?

NUTTER: Let me just give you an additional piece of information. Governor Wolf, who as you well -- many of you well know was here last night, has ordered state flags to be flown at half-mast and I have issued a similar order for city of Philadelphia flags as well out of respect to the victims. Walt?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

NUTTER: Still in process. I was just at the site 10 minutes ago.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How many are still unaccounted for?

NUTTER: We don't have an accurate count on that. And I'm not in a position to get into those details. Jessica?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You still do not have everyone accounted for 12 plus hours later. We're hearing there are still people unaccounted for? Still don't have everyone accounted for?

NUTTER: We have not completely matched the manifest that we received from Amtrak with the patient or hospital information that hospitals assign personnel to our emergency operation center last night. That is a very tedious process dealing with individuals, many of whom obviously we have no idea who they are until they self-identify.

We very well could have also had people who did not even check in with us. There's also the possibility that some people who were supposed to be on that train as many of us always know some people just miss their train or end up taking a different train or something like that. So we're not going to get into the hard specifics of who do we have, who do we not have, anything like that, until we know for sure.

And again we have to be sensitive -- we have to be sensitive to people who may have had a family member on that train. I'll come back over.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you confirm that four bodies have been removed from the wreckage and that responders are working to get one more out of there?

NUTTER: What I can confirm is what I confirmed earlier. We know that unfortunately there are six deceased. I'm not going to get into where they were, where they've been transported. Our medical examiner has given us information. We have unfortunately six deceased.

(CROSSTALK)

NUTTER: I heard a voice over here.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Robert?

NUTTER: As best information as I know, the conductor was injured to some extent. Received medical treatment and is -- either has or is giving a statement or report to the Philadelphia Police Department. I have no further information about the conductor or any other Amtrak personnel.

Yes, sir?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Robert Sumwalt, from the NTSB, is there anything you can give us as the preliminary investigation into preliminary what you're saying, what would have gone wrong? Was there a possibility (INAUDIBLE)? SUMWALT: Thank you. The question is, do we have any preliminary

information about that curve and no, and just as we've said, we're just getting here. Our purpose for being here on site is to collect the perishable evidence. The information that will go away with the passage of time. So we're going to go and very methodically start collecting information, what was the train speed, what was the speed limit on that curve? That's part of our investigation is to very carefully document that.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What will the black box give you? What information will you have when you get --

(CROSSTALK)

NUTTER: I have no idea.

SUMWALT: Here's what we do. It's the mayor's press conference. But if you will, when you have a question, raise your hand, state your name and affiliation once we call on you. And that will make it a little more organized. So the question is, is that what can we get from those event recorders and we can get a lot of information, and it's my understanding that we've already recovered those and they will be read out. We'll be looking at those.

We have a forward facing video camera that's in the head end of the locomotive. The front end of the train. So we will be looking at that. We will be -- the event recorders themselves can give you information about the speed of the train, any brake application, any throttle applications that the engineer could have made. Horn, bell, it can give us a lot.