The Investigation now focuses on the truck
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March 17, 1999
Web posted at: 3:11 a.m. EST (0811 GMT)

BOURBONNAIS, Illinois (CNN) -- Federal investigators are focusing on tire marks near the railroad crossing where an Amtrak passenger train slammed into a tractor-trailer that could indicate the trucker drove around safety gates.

At least 13 people were killed in the Monday night collision, their bodies pulled from two burned-out sleeper cars, federal investigators said. Another 116 were injured -- including 49 who were hospitalized -- some with amputated fingers or toes, at least one with a broken back and others suffering burns.

Four to six of those aboard were still unaccounted for. There were 196 passengers, 19 Amtrak crew members and two Illinois Central employees on the train.

"If in fact those tire marks are from this truck, then they would indicate that this truck went around the gates," said John Goglia of the National Transportation Safety Board. "We are working to determine if in fact that happened."

Goglia told reporters investigators have interviewed the driver, collecting data and getting "a sequence of events" from him leading up to the accident. Investigators also are testing the driver's blood and urine samples, and they have retraced his last 72 hours on the road.

"We are not finished with the driver," Goglia said.

He said the trucker, John Stokes, 58, of Manteno, Illinois, had told an investigator Monday night that he was in the process of crossing the tracks when the gates came down.

"We will pursue that with vigor to determine whether or not there is a signal problem or in fact we have a driver problem," Goglia said.

He said rail records indicate the crossing gates at this particular location had not malfunctioned in the last year when a train has approached.

He added that the train's engineer, who remains hospitalized, could shed light on exactly what happened. Investigators tried to interview him earlier Tuesday but "his response wasn't the greatest," Goglia said, because of the trauma he's been through and the medication he's on.

Investigators plan to re-interview him Wednesday as well as talk with the conductor and assistant conductor. They also plan to do on-site testing with the truck involved in the accident to try to piece together clues to the crash, Goglia said.

The "City of New Orleans" Amtrak train headed from Chicago to New Orleans collided with the tractor-trailer truck loaded with steel bars, derailing and catching fire. Eleven of its 14 cars and both engines derailed, Amtrak said.

The "black box" event recorder 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).

It also shows 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 any vehicles that it was approaching.

Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who toured the twisted wreckage Tuesday night, said, "I've never seen anything quite like the site I saw here."

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

The idle cars also could have blocked the view of the truck driver, preventing him from seeing the oncoming train, Goglia said.

For survivors, the accident was a scene of horror.

"It was pitch dark. Our eyes had to adjust. Everyone was screaming, there were people on top of me. I didn't know whether I was going to get out or if it would explode," one survivor said.

Eyewitness Scott Andrews said the train looked like "an accordion" after the crash, and "it was on fire." Another compared the dazed survivors to "walking zombies."

Stokes, the trucker, was treated at a local hospital and released. Records show he was driving with a probationary Illinois license after getting five speeding tickets in Indiana from 1996 to 1998 -- at least three while he was driving a truck. He was just 10 days away from completing his probation.

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