4 dead, 63 injured after NYC-bound Metro-North passenger train derails in Bronx
Officials said seven cars tore off the tracks Sunday near the Hudson River while headed toward Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal. Engineer Bill Rockefeller told officials he applied the brakes, but they didn’t respond as the train approached a curve. He is being treated for undisclosed injuries. Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited the scene and President Obama vowed the White House would stay in touch with authorities as they continued their investigation.
DAVID TORRES
Rescuers transfer injured Metro-North train engineer William 'Bill' Rockefeller Jr. from the site of Sunday's train derailment in the Bronx.
A Metro-North train whipped around a sharp turn in the Bronx on Sunday morning just before a deadly derailment that killed four, injured dozens and tossed passengers around like rag dolls.
GOOGLE
The engineer at the controls of the train headed toward Grand Central Terminal told supervisors that he tried to apply the brakes, a source told the Daily News. But the train didn’t slow down as it took the curve just north of the Spuyten Duyvil station at about 7:20 a.m.
“It’s definitely human error,” a different source told The News. “The speed was excessive.”
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Authorities rush to aid the dead and injured after Sunday's train derailment in the Bronx.
All seven of the train’s cars and its locomotive derailed. One train car flipped down a river bank, coming to rest just inches from the water where the Harlem River meets the Hudson.
“We were going so fast around that turn, something wasn’t right,” said Kathleen Jones, 60, a nurse’s aide from Poughkeepsie. “All of a sudden everyone went flying. We were dragging on the ground, people were landing on each other. Then there was dirt everywhere.”
ERIC THAYER
Metro-North train engineer William 'Bill' Rockefeller Jr. is one of the 63 people injured critically in Sunday's derailment in the Bronx.
Two women and two men were killed in the crash, a law enforcement source said. Among the dead was James Lovell, 58, husband of a councilwoman in Philipstown in Putnam County. A father of four and a screenwriter, he was also a lighting designer.
“Words can’t express how much my father meant to me,” his son Finn Lovell wrote on Twitter. “It’s safe to say he molded me into the man I am today. I love you and miss you. I can’t believe your [sic] gone. This feels like an awful nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”
MICHAEL SCHWARTZ FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Rescue workers at the scene helping those injured in the Metro-North train derailment near Spuyten Duyvil.
He ended the tweet with a goodbye.
“Rest easy dad,” he wrote. “I love you.”
ERIC THAYER
Emergency personnel remove train engineer William 'Bill' Rockefeller Jr. from the scene of Sunday's Metro-North train derailment in the Bronx
James Lovell was on his way to New York where he was planning to work on the Tuesday lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, according to the Journal News.
ANDREW SAVULICH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Bill Rockefeller Sr., father of Bill Rockefeller Jr., the motor man involved in Sunday's Metro-North train crash in the Bronx, is seen calling police outside his Rhinebeck, N.Y., home.
The other fatalities were from Queens, Newburgh and Montrose in Westchester County.
An FDNY spokesman said 63 people were injured — 11 of them critically. At least two passengers were ejected through the windows of the Hudson line train.
ANDREW SAVULICH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The dad of the train operator in Sunday's Metro-North derailment, Bill Rockefeller Sr., is shown Sunday outside his home.
Samuel Rivera, 43, of Ossining, was among the most seriously hurt of the survivors, suffering a spinal cord injury. Relatives said Rivera, an MTA employee, was on his way to the city with his 14-year-old son.
“We don’t know if he’ll ever walk again,” family friend Maria Ojito said at St. Barnabas Hospital.
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A car from the derailed train sits dangerously close to the Hudson River.
Passengers said the train seemed to be traveling too fast to take the curve safely.
Earl Weener of the National Transportation Safety Board said a diesel locomotive was at the rear of the train, pushing the cars toward Manhattan when the accident occurred.
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Injured train passengers were rushed to local hospitals on Sunday.
The engineer, William Rockefeller, 45, a 15-year Metro-North veteran, was being treated for undisclosed injuries.
MARK BONIFACIO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A aerial view of a Metro-North train that derailed near the near the Spuyten Duyvil Station in the Bronx, killeing at least four people.
“He’s traumatized over the accident,” a source said of Rockefeller.
The engineer’s uncle, Jan Rockefeller, defended his nephew and implored people not to rush to judgment.
MARK BONIFACIO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Passengers have reported taking a curve fast before the train derailed on Sunday morning.
“If he said the brakes failed, the brakes failed. He doesn’t lie,” the uncle said told The News. “He’s been in fire departments, rescues. Everything he did, he did in a safe manner. Everything with him was safety.”
The speed limit for the curve is 30 mph. Trains normally slow from 70 mph to safely make the curve, officials said.
BARRY WILLIAMS FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Rescue workers rushed to the Metro-North train derailment on Sunday just outside of the Spuyten Duyvil Station.
“There has to be another factor. It can’t just be the curve,” Cuomo said.
Weener said NTSB investigators, who arrived on scene about 12:30 p.m., recovered the train’s “black box” which records the speed and will note if the engineer did try to apply the brakes.
MARK BONIFACIO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A aerial view of the Metro-North train derailment shows its location in the Bronx and its proximity to the city.
Among the injured was a female NYPD officer in her 20s who was on her way to work. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly visited her at St. Barnabas Hospital, where she was being treated for broken ribs and leg and shoulder injuries.
Kelly also checked on four other off-duty NYPD officers who were aboard the train. Two of the cops were treated at the scene and two were taken to Montefiore Medical Center.
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Dozens were reported injured in the accident
Hundreds of first responders raced to the horrific crash, finding the walking wounded dazed and confused and other passengers still trapped inside overturned cars. NYPD scuba divers searched the water for passengers and rescuers with cadaver dogs looked under toppled cars, fearing other survivors had been ejected.
FELIX LAM FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
‘There was smoke everywhere and debris. People were thrown to the other side of the train,’ said Joel Zaritsky.
Cuomo said all passengers and crew members had been accounted for.
But Weener said a crane was being dispatched Sunday night to upright the overturned cars and locomotive and that rescuers would look for other casualties under them.
BARRY WILLIAMS FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A Metro-North passenger train derailed Sunday morning as holiday travelers made their way home from Thanksgiving celebrations.
More than 150 were aboard the train that originated in Poughkeepsie at 5:54 a.m. and was headed to Grand Central Terminal. Many passengers, including some going home after the long holiday weekend, were asleep when they were jarred awake by screeching metal, screams and a loud bang as cars left the rails.
Survivors said the violent crash sent passengers somersaulting from their seats, some landing on top of each other.
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The train was heading to Manhattan when it derailed Sunday morning, injuring dozens and killing four.
“All of a sudden the woman sitting in front of me was on my lap,” said Joseph Melendez, 44, a hotel manager from Poughkeepsie.
As trains skidded along the track bed, rocks and other large debris filled the cars, becoming violent projectiles that that slammed into passengers.
A locator map shows the Spuyten Duyvil Metro-North Railroad Station.
“I saw a woman pinned between the chair and the gravel,” said Melendez. “The windows blew out when the train fell and she went through the window.”
DANIEL COHEN VIA TWITTER
An overhead view of the Metro-North Train derailment that occurred Sunday.
A dozen of the injured passengers were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where officials said two were in critical condition. Another 17 survivors were taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where four were in critical condition. Jacobi Medical Center was treating 13 passengers; none were in critical condition.
“Folks are stunned. They’re traumatized. Certainly some will suffer from some form of PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder],” said Dr. Ernest Patti of St. Barnabas. “This will be a trying thing for them to get back on a train.”
EPA/ANDREW GOMBERT
Gov. Cuomo arrives at the scene of the train derailment.
Survivor Sharelle Coore, 19, a student at the University of Delaware, told relatives that a woman sitting in front of her was ejected through the window of the train. Coore landed on the ceiling of the car she was riding in with her legs wrapped around the luggage rack, said her cousin Lisa Delgado of Washington Heights.
Thankful to be alive, Coore told relatives from her hospital bed at New York-Presbyterian, “God is good.”
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Firefighters help a woman who in a sling who was injured in the Metro-North train derailment Spuyten Duyvil.
The NTSB immediately dispatched a “go-team” to investigate the accident. Weener said the team would examine the track for any anomalies that could have caused the accident. They will also look at whether signals were working properly and investigate the crew to determine if human error was a contributing factor. He said investigators will also scour the maintenance records for the train and the tracks.
At the White House, President Barack Obama said his “thoughts and prayers” went out to the injured and the loved ones of those killed.
ALEX RUD FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Eddie Russel, who was on the train when it derailed, said he had some back soreness, but no serious injuries.
“The White House will continue to stay in contact with the federal, state and local partners as they respond to this event,” Obama said in a statement.
The incident marked at least the sixth Metro-North train derailment in the past two years.
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A rescue worker stands atop one of the five cars that came off the track, this one having fallen on its side.
On May 17, more than 70 people were injured when two Metro-North trains collided after a derailment near Bridgeport, Conn.
NAOMI FINK
Dozens were injured Sunday after a Metro-North train derailed near the Hudson River in the Bronx.
In July, a 25-car CSX garbage train derailed and damaged tracks on the Metro-North Hudson line near the Spuyten Duyvil Station — named after a nearby creek which means “Spouting Devil” in Dutch. The garbage train accident occurred about 1,700 feet from Sunday’s crash.
Weener said NTSB investigators would look into the prior derailments to determine if there is a link.
RICHARD HARBUS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Rescue workers treat passengers injured in the Metro-North Hudson River line derailment that occurred on Sunday morning.
An MTA spokeswoman said tracks in the area were thoroughly inspected after the most recent accident.
“Right now there is no indication there was a track issue,” the spokeswoman said.
BARRY WILLIAMS FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Dianna Jackson, right, comforts fellow Metro North survivor Katrina Frazier.
It was unclear Sunday night when wreckage would be cleared and the tracks reopened. The NTSB gave MTA officials permission to upright the cars and move them.
Cuomo advised commuters who use the Hudson Line to make other transportation arrangements or use the Harlem Line.
BARRY WILLIAMS FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Rescue workers pull victims out of a Metro-North train derailment south of the Spuyten Duyvil station Sunday.
