Page 41 - The Engineer News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Two years ago a metro north train derailed in new york after going into a curve at nearly three times the speed limit. right after the "today" show's jeff rosen showed us technology could have prevented it from happening. >> state-of-the-art collision avoidance technology. >> it's called positive train control, or ptc. a sophisticated system of sensors on the rails and inside the locomotive even using satellites to track the train's movements and prevent many accidents caused by operator error. if the train is going too fast the computer warns the crew. if the engineer doesn't slow down, the c...

When you look at just how horrific and mangled that metals is to try to figure out how this happened wolf. >> have they been able to speak with the conductor, kate? >> that's a big question. the mayor said -- a i'm hoping to get an update on that as well at the 2:00 briefing. the mayor said the conductor, the engineer, was somewhat injured and was going to speak or has spoken with police investigators. that's clearly a big question and will be a big focus of the investigation, what the conductor knows and what happened happened in terms of the human performance as the ntsb says it so i don't k...

Correct, but the first thing they're going to look at is how fast was this train going for the track it was on. >> if it was going too fast around that curve, is that a human error, conductor, the engineer or some other problem potentially? >> it could be any number of things, but you start with human performance. was the conductor, was the engineer operating the train appropriately leading up to the turn was he applying the brakes ape lately was there any kind of failure in the braking system that would have prevented him from entering the turn at the correct speed. those will, you know the e...

Even more trag whick you think about that passenger who told us how enraged and infuriated he is that when was caused by speed. tonight investigators are looking at the engineer's actions. along with the track. to try to understand why this train, which was carrying 238 passengers and five crew members, was traveling so incredibly fast. tom foreman is "outfront" live in the virtual room. tom what have you been able to learn as you piece this together second by second about how exactly this crash happened? >> reporter: what we know that is investigators had good reason from the beginning to sus...

Fundamentally changed the lives of those impacted by the faulty ignition switch. >> reporter: 15 gm employees, including senior executives, fired. five others disciplined and evidence the ignition problems were flagged as early as 1999. the engineer, who designed it, called it the switch from hell. but the investigation found no evidence of a cover-up and cleared barra of any wrongdoing. a point she's stood by since the beginning. >> you claim that never once did this ever cross your desk in the last decade. what do you say to the families? >> i was never a part of that process on this issue. ...