Goglia says all of the confirmed fatalities occurred in one sleeper car 222K/22 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

March 17, 1999
Web posted at: 7:46 p.m. EST (0046 GMT)

In this story: Shattered lives Amtrak, NTSB now agree RELATED STORIES, SITES

BOURBONNAIS, Illinois (CNN) -- Federal investigators ended their search Wednesday for victims of the fiery Amtrak crash that killed 11 people and prepared to restage the sequence of events surrounding the train wreck.

The National Transportation Safety Board planned an on-site test using another engine and a similar tractor-trailer to test various possibilities leading up to the accident, including whether the truck driver's vision was blocked by two idle cars on adjacent tracks.

"We are going to determine what he could see from the truck," said NTSB member John Goglia.

Eleven people -- all believed to be passengers -- were killed when the Amtrak "City of New Orleans" train slammed into the truck late Monday shortly after leaving Chicago en route to New Orleans.

Names of the victims have yet to be released, pending notification of their families, NTSB spokesman Jamie Finch told CNN. There were 196 passengers, 17 Amtrak crew members and two Illinois Central Railroad employees on the train.

"All persons have been accounted for," Finch announced at nightfall Wednesday. "We are no longer searching for victims."

The truck driver, John Stokes, 58, of Manteno, Illinois, who was not seriously injured, told investigators he did not see any flashing lights at the railroad crossing and that the crossing gate came down after he was already on the track.

Records show there have been no such malfunctions at that crossing when a train has approached in the past year, Goglia said.

Rescue workers mark train cars that have been fully searched for victims

Stokes, who was using a probationary driving permit since his license had been suspended because of speeding tickets, underwent blood and urine tests and also took a Breathalyzer test. "All I know is that it didn't show he was over the limit."

Shattered lives

About 60 family members of those believed killed and some survivors were taken by bus Wednesday to the crash scene, where they laid flowers and wreaths near the twisted wreckage. One woman, with tears rolling down her face, held up a red rose and gently placed it near the tracks.

Another survivor, Jeanine Sharp Radl, said her life has been shattered.

"I just sat on the pavement, and people all around me were cut and bleeding, and everybody was screaming, and I said, 'My children, my children, my family. My mom's gone. My daughter's gone.'"

All those killed died on the burned-out sleeping car. Another 116 people were injured, including 49 who were hospitalized, some with amputated fingers or toes, some burned, at least one with a broken back.

Amtrak, NTSB now agree

Earlier, NTSB member John Goglia lashed out at Amtrak, complaining that 36 hours after the crash there still was no accurate count of how many people were on the train.

Clean-up crews remove twisted, scorched metal

He toned down his criticism in a written statement hours later.

"The confusion associated with the number of missing victims was a result of data provided to the Safety Board that had not been recently updated, and it would be inappropriate to leave the impression that Amtrak was failing in its duties to its passengers," it said.

Amtrak spokesman R. Clifford Black said the two sides now "agree on our accounting methodology and also on the numbers as it relates to this accident."

The "black box" aboard the main engine was recovered for examination, and preliminary results reveal that the accident happened at 9:47 p.m. CST (10:47 p.m. EST).

They also show that the train was going 79 mph -- within the track's legal speed limits -- and that the engineer blew the train's whistle to warn that it was approaching.

The derailed passenger cars slammed into two idle rail cars -- one loaded with steel, the other with residue from the furnaces of a steel mill -- on an adjacent track, adding to the severity of the accident, officials said.

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