NEW YORK (CNN) — The Metro-North Railroad train involved in a fiery collision that killed an SUV driver and five train passengers north of New York City was traveling within the speed limit when its emergency brake was applied, National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said Thursday.
Sumwalt said the engineer sounded its horn appropriately as the train approached, with the flashing lights and gates functioning at the crossing. The train stopped 950 feet after the emergency brake was applied.
A witness who was in car behind the SUV told the NTSB that the vehicle stopped at the crossing, the driver came out of the SUV after the gate struck her vehicle and that she returned to the SUV and moved forward at the time of the collision, Sumwalt said.
It was the deadliest crash in Metro-North Railroad history. More than a dozen other people were injured.
The Mercedes-Benz SUV driven by Ellen Brody inexplicably stopped on the tracks Tuesday night in Valhalla, about 30 miles north of New York City, the NTSB said.
The vehicle was dragged 1,000 feet by the train, officials said.
Some 400 feet of the electrified third rail perforated the first rail car and part of the second in 80-foot sections “breaking apart section by section, just basically piling up” in the cars, according to the NTSB.
Initial indications are the raging fire that consumed both the SUV and first rail car was fueled by gasoline from the SUV, officials said.
Brody was killed in the collision along with train passengers Walter Liedtke, European paintings curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Eric Vandercar, a senior managing director for Mesirow Financial; Robert Dirks, a scientist with D. E. Shaw Research; and Joseph Nadol and Aditya Tomar of J.P. Morgan.
