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At a greater rate of speed in that section of the track. it is a big controversy that the system is not in place in the northbound section. ntsb officials say if it had been this accident would not have occurred. christine. >> brian todd for us. thank you. friends and former colleagues of the engineer brandon bostian are speaking out in his defense. xavier bishop worked as his flagman until bishop was fired for attendance issues. he says he has never seen bostian take a drink or drive a train we he wasn't ready. >> if there was something he did not know he knew who to call to get information. ...

Back. and he says this engineer always checked out fine. there was nothing that would alarm him about anything when the engineer was behind the train. >> let me ask you some tough questions. ever see him drinking? >> never. >> ever see him too sleepy? >> never. >> texting? >> no. >> phone calls? >> never had his phone out. it didn't matter what the situation was. never had his phone out. >> let me ask you, what do you think happened? >> i -- i honestly don't know. i really believe something happened prior to him getting to that curve. we all know what the speed limits are. and it's not a myste...

>> announcer: from abc news, this is "world news now." >> good morning to you all on this friday. i'm t.j. holmes. >> i'm marci gonzalez. reena ninan is on assignment. we begin with the search for answers in that deadly amtrak crash. the engineer expected to speak with investigators any day now. >> but we now know the train accelerated. it was speeding up for a full minute before it derailed. the ntsb says it's unclear though whether the speed was increased manually by the engineer. >> the eight people killed have all been identified and amtrak is now helping victims with funeral and medical e...

Throttle by actually physically opening it through some motion you could speed up the train. it would take some type of probably conscious movement to do so. especially with this type of throttle. but in general, i'm not familiar with the type of throttle on that particular locomotive how easy it is to move. but in general, it would not be easy. >> there's also been talk of like a dead man switch. can you explain that to me? >> ma'am? hello? >> barrett, it's brooke. you're on tv. do you hear me? can you give me a thumbs up? okay. we lost him. we're going to work on that. technology happens on ...

Person that can control the speed of the train. >> reporter: the engineer that night was 32-year-old brandon bostian. the ntsb says now as he approached one of the most dangerous curves in the corridor, he wasn't slowing down. he was speeding up. 70 miles per hour a minute before impact then 80, and 90. 16 seconds before the curve, the train is going exactly twice the speed limit 100 miles an hour and there was no way a train could make that curve at that speed. >> this is a relatively new train. does it have any history of unintended acceleration? >> that's a great question. currently we know...