YONKERS, N.Y.
(AP) -- The engineer whose speeding commuter train ran off the rails
along a curve, killing four people, nodded at the controls just before
the wreck, and by the time he caught himself it was too late, a union
official said Tuesday.
William Rockefeller
"basically nodded," said Anthony Bottalico, leader of the rail employees
union, relating what he said the engineer told him.
"He
had the equivalent of what we all have when we drive a car. That is,
you sometimes have a momentary nod or whatever that might be. How long
that lasts, I can't answer that."
Rockefeller's
lawyer did not return calls. During a late-afternoon news conference,
federal investigators said they were still talking to Rockefeller, and
they would not comment on his level of alertness around the time of the
Sunday morning wreck in the Bronx.
Separately,
however, two law enforcement officials said the engineer told police at
the scene that his mind was wandering before he realized the train was
in trouble, and by then it was too late to do anything about it. One of
the officials said Rockefeller described himself as being "in a daze"
before the wreck.
The officials, who were
briefed on the engineer's comments, weren't authorized to discuss the
investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Questions
about Rockefeller's role mounted rapidly after investigators disclosed
on Monday that the Metro-North Railroad train jumped the tracks after
going into a curve at 82 mph, or nearly three times the 30 mph speed
limit. In addition to the four people killed, dozens were hurt.
"He
caught himself, but he caught himself too late. ... He powered down, he
put the train in emergency, but that was six seconds prior to
derailment," Bottalico said.
Rockefeller, who was operating the train from the front car, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released.
National
Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener repeated that it was too
soon to say whether the accident was caused by human error. But he said
investigators have found no problems so far with the brakes or signals.
Alcohol
tests on the train's crew members were negative, and investigators were
still awaiting the results of drug tests, the NTSB official said.
On
the day of the crash, Rockefeller was on the second day of a five-day
work week, reporting at 5:04 a.m. after a typical nine-hour shift the
day before, according to Weener.
"There's every indication that he would have had time to get full restorative sleep," Weener said.
Bottalico
said Rockefeller "never said anything about not getting enough sleep."
But he said the engineer had switched just weeks earlier from the night
shift to the day shift, "so he did have a change in his hours and his
circadian rhythms with regard to sleep."
The
New York Police Department is conducting its own investigation, with
help from the Bronx district attorney's office, in the event the
derailment becomes a criminal case.
Rockefeller himself, meanwhile, stayed out of sight. But his union and former co-workers spoke up in his defense.
"This is a man who is totally distraught by the loss of life, and he's having a tough time dealing with that," Bottalico said.
He
added: "Once the NTSB is done with their investigation and Billy is
finished with his interview, it will be quite evident that there was no
criminal intent with the operation of his train."
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday the engineer could be faulted for the train's speed if nothing else.
"Certainly,
we want to make sure that that operator is disciplined in an
appropriate way. There's such a gross deviation from the norm," he said.
Steven
Harrod, University of Dayton professor who studies transportation, said
that trains typically do not have a speed or cruise control, but a
power control, and once it is set, a train can pick up speed on its own
because of the terrain.
"Thus, if the engineer
loses attention, the train can gain speed without intervention," Harrod
said. "The power control could have been set" as the train left a
station, "and then forgotten by the engineer."
In
case of an engineer becoming incapacitated, the train's front car was
equipped with a "dead man's pedal" that must be depressed or else the
train will automatically slow down.
Trains
also can have alarms, sometimes called "alerters," that sound if the
operators' controls haven't been moved within a certain timeframe. If an
engineer doesn't respond, often by pressing a button, brakes
automatically operate. But the Metro-North train that derailed didn't
have such a system, according to Marjorie Anders, a spokeswoman for
Metro-North's parent, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Regardless,
"neither of those two methodologies is truly a fail-safe approach,"
said Grady Cothen, a former Federal Railroad Administration safety
official. Congress has ordered commuter and freight railroads to install
technology called positive train control - which uses electronics to
monitor trains' positions and speed and stop derailments and other
problems - by the end of 2015.
Rockefeller, 46
and married with no children, has worked for the railroad for 15 years
and has been an engineer for 10, according to Weener. Rockefeller lives
in a well-kept house on a modest rural road in Germantown, N.Y., about
40 miles south of Albany.
He started as a
custodian at Grand Central Terminal, then monitored the building's fire
alarms and other systems, and ultimately became an engineer.
"He
was a stellar employee. Unbelievable," said his former supervisor,
Michael McLendon, who retired from the railroad about a year ago.
McLendon
said he was stunned when he heard about the crash, shortly after
opening his mail to find a Christmas card from Rockefeller and his wife.
"I said, `Well, I can't imagine Billy making a mistake,'" McLendon said. "Not intentionally, by any stretch of the imagination."
Rockefeller's
work routine had recently changed. He had begun running that route on
Nov. 17, two weeks before the wreck, Anders said.
Bottalico said Rockefeller was familiar with the route and qualified to run it.
Bruno
Lizzul, an MTA machinist who met Rockefeller when they both worked at
Grand Central around 2000, described the engineer as honest,
hard-working and helpful - so much so that he took it upon himself to
show up and help Lizzul renovate his home ahead of a baby's arrival.
"He went the extra yard. He just decided to extend himself to me," Lizzul said.
Lizzul said Rockefeller was very serious about his work: "He would not do anything to upset anybody or in any way cause harm."
Meanwhile,
crews were rebuilding the damaged track. Officials expect 98 percent of
service to be restored to the affected line Wednesday, Cuomo said.
