Investigators remain searching for clues for what caused a New York commuter train to derail, which killed at least four people and injured more than 60, ABC News reported. Speed may be a factor as the crash occurred while the train was at a curve in the Bronx.
The Metro-North passenger train was traveling from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central New York City on Sunday morning."The curve speed limit is 30 miles an hour. There is a 70 mile an hour zone just ahead of it, a 75 ahead of it," said Earl Weener, a National Transportation Safety Board member.
Three of the dead were ejected from the train in the crash, while "several people had to be extracted from the wreckage," according to ABC News.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority identified the four passengers who were killed as 58-year-old Jim Lovell of Cold Spring, New York, 59-year-old James Ferrari, of Montrose, New York, 54-year-old Donna Smith of Newburgh, and 35-year-old Ahn Kisook, who had been a Queens resident.
The accident marks the second passenger train derailment in six months for Metro-North line. However, it marks the first one that included fatalities in its 31-year history, news reports said. In July, a freight train derailed near the same stretch of track, ABC News also reported.
"Obviously this is a very tragic situation. The first order of business is to care for the people on the train," said Governor Andrew Cuomo.
NTSB officials said they expected to be on the scene for another week, and will look at all possible causes of the accident, such as the conditions of the track, and whether it occurred because of human error.
Dennis O'Neil, a passenger, told NBC New York that he believed the train was going too fast.
"It was coming towards Spuyten Duyvil and you could feel it starting to lean and it was like, 'hey, what's going on?', And then it hit the curb real hard and flopped over and slid down the hill. A couple people were hurt very badly right in front of me," O'Neill said.
The black box should be able to tell how fast the train was traveling. It also should indicate whether the brakes failed.
