Investigators want to hear from engineer of derailed Philadelphia Amtrak

Federal safety investigators probing the deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia were waiting to interview the train’s engineer, whose attorney said on Thursday he did not remember the crash that killed seven people and injured more than 200 others.

The train bound for New York City from Washington was barreling into a curve at more than 100 miles per hour on Tuesday night, twice the speed limit, when the engineer slammed on the brakes, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said.

Investigators said they have not yet interviewed the train’s engineer, identified by a city official as Brandon Bostian, to give him time to recover.

NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said on Wednesday that data from the black box, or event recorder, recovered at the crash site had not yet been fully analyzed.

But he said the derailment could have been avoided by an advanced safety system called “positive train control,” that was not installed.

Application of the brakes slowed the train slightly to 102 mph (164 kph) in the seconds before the locomotive and all seven passenger cars derailed, Sumwalt said.

Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program on Thursday, Bostian’s lawyer, Robert Goggin, said his client had no memory of the crash and “no explanation” for what happened.

“He remembers coming into the curve, he remembers attempting to reduce speed, but thereafter he was knocked out just like all the other passengers on the train,” Goggin said.

Bostian does not remember deploying the emergency brakes, the lawyer said.