Data recorder recovered from wrecked Hoboken train

Federal safety investigators pulled the event recorder from the locomotive of the train that crashed into Hoboken Terminal Thursday, but wreckage from the accident has created unsafe conditions that are preventing investigators from getting near the front of the train.

That’s important, a federal safety officer said Friday morning, because the engineer was controlling the train from the lead car at the time of the crash.

That lead car, also called the cab car or the controlling car, is pinned under the roof of Hoboken Terminal’s train shed, which collapsed after the train went airborne, striking the roof’s support columns.

In addition to the risk that the structural supports may collapse further, the roof may contain cancer-causing asbestos that is dangerous to breathe, Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Friday morning.

That means investigators probing what caused the crash cannot access the cameras and data recorders inside the lead car until the roof is safely removed.

It’s all slowing down the agency’s process, even as reporters and members of the public hound the agency to figure out what went wrong.

“We’re more about accuracy than speed,” Dinh-Zarr said.

Investigators will be on the scene of the crash for the next seven to 10 days, Dinh-Zarr said.

The agency will not release any preliminary findings about what may have caused the crash until after the investigators leave Hoboken.

In addition to the locomotive’s data recorder, investigators with the agency hope to review video from cameras placed at the front and rear of the train, she said. The agency also will try to obtain video from other cameras, she said, possibly including security and surveillance cameras owned by NJ Transit or private businesses along the train’s route.

Such video could prove important because it appears the train’s problems began long before it barreled into the station. Under normal circumstances, trains on their way to Hoboken Terminal begin braking as soon as they exit the tunnel that carries tracks under the Palisades and into Jersey City.

But in this case, the train never braked after leaving the tunnel, Jamie Weatherhead-Saul, a passenger on the train, told CNN Friday morning. Weatherhead-Saul said she was standing in a vestibule in the train’s lead car, and the people standing around her all noticed that the train continued moving at full speed, she said.

“It just didn’t slow down,” she said. “For sure, you thought, we’re all going to die.”

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board will be looking into all the human and mechanical factors that may have caused the crash, Dinh-Zarr said. That will include exploring the track, signals and electrical systems coming into Hoboken; the electrical, mechanical and computer systems onboard the train; and the crew and passengers onboard, she said.