NTSB: Truck hit by California commuter train was not stuck - Washington Post
The truck that was struck by a California commuter train Tuesday morning had not gotten stranded, but instead was on the tracks because the driver said he had made a wrong turn, authorities said. A Metrolink train heading from Ventura County to downtown Los Angeles smashed into a Ford truck on the tracks at 5:42 a. m. on Tuesday, causing three rail cars to derail and tumble onto their sides. The white, 2005 Ford F-450 truck that Sanchez-Ramirez was driving, with a trailer attached, was completely engulfed in flames after the crash. Sanchez-Ramirez had gotten out of the truck and walked away from it before the crash, which pushed his vehicle about 300 feet down the tracks, federal investigators said. Police said that Sanchez-Ramirez had turned onto the tracks and driven along them for a brief period before his truck got stuck. However, the National Transportation Safety Board, which dispatched a team of investigators to the crash scene, said Tuesday that the truck did not get stuck on the tracks. “It was not stuck, bottomed out on the track or something like that,” Robert Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said during a news conference Tuesday night. Sanchez-Ramirez’s wife said that the truck had stalled on the tracks, and said he jumped out of the truck when he was unable to start the engine and saw the train approaching. Source: www.washingtonpost.com
