page_title: December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment
section_title: Investigation
hierarchical_section_title: December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment / Aftermath / Investigation
caption_attribution_description: NTSB Investigator In Charge Michael Flanigon, inspects track at the scene of the Metro North train derailment, December 1, 2013.
context_page_description: On the morning of December 1, 2013, a Metro-North Railroad Hudson Line passenger train derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Four of the 115 passengers were killed and another 61 injured; the accident caused $9 million worth of damage. It was the deadliest train accident within New York City since a 1991 subway derailment in Manhattan, and the first accident in Metro-North's history to result in passenger fatalities. The additional $60 million in legal claims paid out as of 2020 have also made it the costliest accident in Metro-North's history.
  Early investigations found that the train had gone into the curve where it derailed at almost three times the posted speed limit. The engineer, William Rockefeller, later admitted that before reaching the curve he had gone into a "daze", a sort of highway hypnosis.
  The leader of the National Transportation Safety Board team investigating said it was likely that the accident would have been prevented had positive train control been installed per a prior federal mandate requiring its installation by 2015.
context_section_description: A team from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was dispatched to the scene of the accident to investigate. It found that the train's brakes had been deployed seconds prior to the crash and that the tracks had no problems. From the train event recorders, the NTSB determined that the train was traveling at 82 miles per hour (132 km/h); the speed limit for the section of track involved is 30 miles per hour (48 km/h). The brakes had indeed been deployed, but had reached their maximum level five seconds after the train entered the curve.
  After being lifted from where they had come to rest and restored to the track, the cars involved were impounded by the NTSB and taken to Metro-North's yards at Croton-Harmon and Highbridge. Rockefeller surrendered his cell phone and submitted samples for drug and alcohol tests. When it was reported that his attention had lapsed prior to the accident, investigators announced that they would be assembling a timeline of his 72 hours preceding the accident to see whether they could find any explanation.
caption: NTSB investigators inspect the site of the derailment
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