ntsb presser in just a minute. >> liz: it will be at the top of the hour. we want to let you know fox business will bring it to you live. here is the scene where they're preparing for it. top of the hour you will have it. david: seven dead in philadelphia. the very latest coming up in just seconds. liz: "willis report" is next. gerri: hello, everybody, i'm gerri willis. we're expecting word any minute now from the ntsb on the deadly amtrak derailment. at least seven are dead and more than 200 injured after the train headed for new york derailed in philadelphia. you're looking at pictures right here. the ntsb confirmed that the train was speeding 100 miles an hour as it round ad tight turn double the speed of 50 miles an hour. we have the editor chief of campus reform.org. he was on the train. caleb was one of the 238 passengers. he joins us now from philadelphia.

caleb welcome back to the show but under tough circumstances my friend. tell me how you're doing today, first off. then tell me about the experience. >> well thanks for having me, gerri. thank you for all the kind words and prayers that have been offered up. yeah, all my thoughts and prayers i know that the majority of the country are going out to the family, the families that lost loved ones. this is a tragedy of monumental proportions. yeah i'm feeling better. the body is a little beat up but i'm not complaining. because i was able to walk away and many people weren't. david: i heard you speak about this earlier in the day. what was interesting to me, you were at the back of the train. you had very little notice that anything was going to happen. it came as a huge shock. describe that scene to me. what happened in the car you were sitting in? >> i heard a lot of different accounts, but my account is very simple. i was just sitting there,

relaxing listening to my ipod, listening to a few podcasts of music and all of a sudden started to see, my computer shake a little bit which was on the empty seat next to me. next thing i knew, i saw it in the air. then i was on the other side of the train and everything was black. so the time frame that it took was instant to me. it happened there was no gap. it went from peaceful, quiet, maybe a little shaking which is normal on a train all the way on the other side of the train and you definitely know something bad happened. gerri: what was the point of impact like? what did that feel like to you? >> well i'm feeling it today. i don't remember feeling it last night. it was sort of, open the eyes and realize that there is a lot of dust that is floating around. there is a lot of possibly smoke. at the time people were getting concerned inside of the train there was possibly smoke that would fill this thing up. now you're dealing with a whole

another set of problems. and, it was literally taking the moment, one step at a time, trying to get your bearings. trying to understand what happened. looking for people to help. gerri: did your ipod, did your laptop everything fly through the air? >> everything did flily through the air. in fact there was a situation with my phone. i was unable to reach my dad at home. my sister and let them know i was okay. i was panicked a little bit because the phone was gone. the computer was gone. i had no way of messaging them. and i finally was able to log on to facebook to let them know i was okay at least. and it was only because of the grace of young man that was walking around with his computer out, and his my fi, if you need to use my computer, you're more than welcome to use my computer. gerri: people helping people obviously. was it tough getting out of the car you were in? was it on its side?

was it sitting akilter? describe. >> yeah. so our train was the very back train. some of the cars in the front, from my understanding had rolled. they had tipped over completely. ours was on the verge of tipping over completely. you felt it on the inside. when we were helping people get out of the train, saw you chairs, that had been completely disconnected from their frames. the padding was ripped off. all you saw was exposed sharp metal. people were trying to get through that. there were some situations where some gentlemen were holding chairs up so that you would clear the walkway so people could get through. it was, it was really rough. and we didn't know what was on the other side of where this train was going to tip over if it was going to. it was like there was a guest early they're described it maybe 30-degree angle. that is probably a fair assessment. it was, it was a steep, little incline to try to get out of the

back of the car. but once you were out, people were there to catch you, to help you down. and there was a lot of people, just with a servant's heart looking to help people in a tough situation. gerri: so by the time you're exiting this train car there were already safety personnel on the scene helping people is that right? tell me what you saw in terms of injuries in terms of people being moved away from this disaster? >> injuries are always difficult to analyze because there was, i don't mean to be gruesome, there was literally blood everywhere in some of these situations. there were people weren't terribly injured. i was on a bus to go to the hospital with a gentleman who was a little, he hit his head pretty hard but his tire shirt was covered in blood. it was other people's blood. that is the dangerous thing. you know there were a lot of people that had really serious injuries. when was talking to try to get to the front of the car in one situation, there was a lady i

asked her, how are you doing? you're okay. you're covered in blood. yeah i lost my teeth. she had lost all of her teeth. you get outside of the bus, and, the, car, there were people with broken legs. and all of critical injuries were obviously put into the ambulances first. they then directed the, people on scene, that i think, as best of a job as you could, under those circumstances directing people and maintaining order in that chaotic situation if you can walk and think you're hurt, get on to this bus. we'll take to you this hospital. if there critical injury that needs to be taken care of immediately we'll have the staff to do that as far as i saw the staff of all the hospitals in the philadelphia area did a phenomenal job taking care of every single person said they needed care. no matter how big or how small the injury. i have seen nothing but people

reaching out looking to help others. gerri: caleb, heroics, sounds like by safety personnel there. the police force, emergency personnel, across the board. and boy, are you great at describing the scene. caleb want you to stay with us. >> that's what you got to be, gerri, that is what you have to be so thankful of. i was not in new york city on september 11th but i heard the descriptions. it really resonates when i see it in this situation where people are exiting a very dangerous situation. there are live power lines this train went through that were active. they were on the ground. they could electrocute people at any moment. as people are exiting, trying to leave a dangerous situation, these brave and heroic men and women are running into this situation carrying these gigantic jaws of live to hop on a train and break it open to make sure they can save whoever is in there. gerri: running towards the danger.

running towards the danger and not away from it. it is impressive. you know, i want to tell our viewers here, the ntsb news conference will start any minute. we'll take that live as soon as it starts. meantime i want to bring in, caleb stay there two other experts, former ntsb investigators alan deal, russell quinn business. welcome to you both. -- quinn bi. the headline that the train was going 100 miles an hour or more going around the bend. that is a 15 mile-an-hour area. alan, you first. your reaction to that news please. >> obviously the vehicle was out of control. we all know these speed limits are rigidly enforced. these trains are recorders. if an engineer exceeds the speed limit by as little as 10 mile-per-hours they can lose their operators license of the this will be a very interesting

investigation. obviously the recorders and the human performance people will be trying to get inside of the head of that individual and also look at the physical evidence. gerri. gerri: thank you for that. we're expecting this press conference to start any second. i should say the train engineer apparently declined to answer questions from the philadelphia police. so ntsb presser beginning right now. this is the board member, robert sumwalt we're hearing from. >> from the national transportation safety board. ntsb as many of you know is an independent federal agency. we're charged by congress to investigate transportation accidents, to determine the probable cause and then issue saved recommendations to try to keep these accidents from happening again. before i go any further, i would like to offer our sincere condolences for the loss of lives and injuries that people

have sustained and our thoughts and prayers are really with them. ntsb investigators began arriving here in philadelphia between 4:00 and 5:00 this morning. the majority of the go team was in place here in philadelphia by about 9:30 this morning. upon eye rifle here on the scene we -- arrival on the scene we coordinated with the local officials, first-responders, and then we conducted a pretty thorough walkthrough of the accident site to get an idea what we're dealing with sort of the lay of the land. at noon we held an organizational meeting where we established our investigative protocols and parties to the investigation. the investigator in charge is mike flanagan. mike has over 40 years of railroad experience and he has more than 15 years of accident

investigation experience with the ntsb. he is leading a multidisciplinary team of accident investigators that will be looking into the tracks, the signals, and i'm talking about the train controls signals system the operations of the train the mechanical condition of the train, to include the brake systems, recorders, survival factors and emergency response. in addition to our investigative team we have experts from the ntsb's office of transportation disaster assistance. they are here to help facilitate the needs of the victims and their families. here's the factual information that we presently have. last evening amtrak 188 an

amtrak northeastern, northeast regional train departed philadelphia's 30th street station at 9:10 p.m. bound for new york city's pen station. -- penn station. the train consisted of one locomotive and seven passenger cars. and according to amtrak there were 238 passengers and a crew of five for a total of 243 occupants of the train. approximately 9:21:00 p.m. while traveling through a left-hand turn, the entire train derailed. just moments before the derailment, the train was placed into engineer-induced braking.

and this means that the engineer applied full emergency full emergency brake application. maximum authorized speed through this curve was 50 miles per hour. when the engineer induced brake application was applied, the train was traveling at approximately 106 miles per hour. three section later, when the data to the recorders terminated, the train speed was 102 mile-per-hours. i will indicate that these preliminary figures of speed, subject to further validation but we're pretty close on that. that is our first look at it. it is a pretty complex thing. you don't just press a button and it puts out a speed. we have to measure the wheel speed and put that into a

formula. but we're pretty confident that the train was traveling pretty close to those speeds to within one or two miles per hour. the train had recorders. it had forward-facing video cameras. and it had an event data recorder. both of these recorders are being sent to our laboratory for analysis in washington, d.c. we did get these initial speeds that we just provided you with from an initial download of the event recorder. we released track back to amtrak. they will begin rebuilding it very soon. the locomotive and all but two of the train passenger cars are currently being moved to a secure location where detailed examination and documenttation can occur. throughout the next few days the

investigators will work on scene to thoroughly document the accident site and gather factual information. we will be doing a more detailed documentation of the railcars and the scene. we plan to interview the train crew and other personnel. we would like to interview passengers of the train. we will be conducting a site distance test. we'll be testing the signal system, the train control signals. we'll be testing the brakingism and the detailed -- system and detailed analysis instead of considers sorry analysis i mentioned earlier of the recorders. we'll do a detailed download and analysis of those recorders. our mission is to find out not only what happened but why it happened so that we can prevent it from happening again. that's a really what we're here

for, is to learn from these things to keep them from happening again. i suspect that our investigators will be here in philadelphia on scene for about a week. i want to emphasize that we're not here on scene to determine the cause of the accident while we're on scene. we're not going to speculate our purpose for being here, i like to describe it that we are here to collect perishable evidence which is that information that will go away with the passage of time. that is really what we're here to do, is collect that information that will go away with the passage of time. we can go back and dot analysis later but we have to capture those data very carefully now. i feel like for just, arriving on scene this morning i feel like the preliminary information we have is robust but we still have a lot to get. i know that you have a lot of

questions. we have a lot of questions. and our commitment to you is, we are, as we are discovering factual information we will be releasing it. i will be looking for a press conference about this time tomorrow to tell you what we've learned tomorrow. that is the way it works. our investigators are out in the field doing their jobs douching the day. they report back to me so i can report back to you. i would encourage you to follow us on twitter. our twitter and dell is @ntsb. as i wrap it up, i would like to thank the first-responders for all their efforts. they have been out here through the night, through the early morning, all day trying to secure this area. we want them for their hard efforts. now, i will call for questions. what i would like for you to do is raise your hand. i will call on you. once i call on you, please state your name and your outlet.

yes, sir. >> [inaudible] the reports that he did not [inaudible] -- in application of brakes. >> have we talked to the engineer? the answer to that is no but we plan to. this person has gone through a very traumatic event. we want to give him an opportunity to, to con have less for a day or so before we interview him. that is high priority for us to interview the train crew. right here. >> [inaudible] how ding did it take it to get up to that speed and aggressive getting faster and faster -- [inaudible] was there a reason bells were going off? that he was -- >> so the question is at what point did the train reach

106 miles per hour? i, our initial examination of the data, we have not gone back that far because it is a very detailed analysis, of reading those data. we wanted to find out the speed so we could report those to you. we will be coming up with the timeline. that is one of the things we will do but we don't have those exact figures at this point. >> mr. sumwalt? >> and the alarms in the cab of the locomotive, we will discover that information. we should go through the cockpit data, i'm sorry, from the event recorders. yes, sir, right here. >> are you confident, chris o'connell, from fox 29. are you confident all the fatalities have been accounted for? you say most of the railcars have been removed. there are, you say one or two left. do you know if there are anymore fatalities? >> the question is, do i know if there are anymore fatalities and information concerning the fatalities, i don't want to sound democratic. we are here to -- bureaucratic.

that is our lane. the release of information on injury and fatalities that is the domain of the philadelphia office of emergency management. so they would have that information. and so that is the answer. >> but you released the track. >> [inaudible]. you mentioned that the engineer applied the emergency braking system just before the crash happened. would that have been enough to bring this speed under the level it should have been? was it too late? >> the question is, the engineer put the train into emergency braking, a few seconds, moments before the derailment in the next three section or three or four seconds, the speed of the train only decreased 102. as we know it takes a long time and distance to decelerate a train. >> how long would it typically take that you would have to apply the brakes? >> how long would it take to get

the speed down below the track speed of 50 miles per hour? well he was already in the curve at that point. you're supposed to enter the curve at 50 miles per hour. take question right here. >> [inaudible] the black box does -- [inaudible] >> the question is is the black box, the event data recorder, is that at amtrak is that what your question is? >> yes. >> yeah. that is the question. we took the event recorder to amtrak's facilities because they have the equipment locally to download it. so we took it there for the preliminary look but now we're taking it to our own labs in washington d.c. question right here. >> [inaudible] >> how many event recorders are there? there is one event recorder and that is in the locomotive. in addition to the event recorder there is a forward

facing camera. >> mr. sumwalt. >> [inaudible] gerri: all right. looks like we lost the audio there on the press conference. that was the nts -- we can go back. we're going back right now. >> cbs radio. was the trainee quipped with any sort of system that could have showed the train was going too fast prior to the curve. >> was the trainee equipped with any type of device that could have or should have slowed it down to keep it within its, with its limits? and, amtrak throughout a good bit of northeastern corridor has a system called advanced civil speed enforcement. that is called acise. it is installed most of the

northeast corridor of amtrak. it is not installed where the accident occurred, where the derailment occurred. that type of a system we call it a positive train control system, that type of a system is designed to enforce the civil speed to keep the train below its maximum speed. so we have called for positive train control for many, many years. it is on our most-wanted list. congress has mandated it be installed by the end of this year. so we are very keen on positive train control. based on what we know right now, we feel had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred. >> is there a dead man switch in the train or any emergency alert set up? >> is this trainee quipped with a dead man switch? some trains have it. some don't. often types in place of a dead man switch they have an alerter. if there is no activity from the engineer within a certain period

of time an oral and visual alerter will, will activate in the cab of the locomotive and engineer make as throttle movement or something that will be activated. >> [inaudible] >> we want know exactly was in that car. >> -- by the engineer. >> let me call on you. i will take a question right here. >> when was last time the rail was inspected prior to the accident? >> when was the last time the rail was inspected? postaccident and pre-accident. a railcar ran over the track yesterday. as far as our inspection of the track. there has been a lot of activity. cars are piled up out there. so our real thorough examination of the car track, will begin after those cars are thoroughly removed.

i suspect we'll be out there documenting that tomorrow. question right here. >> there were some tanker trucks nearby. do we know if they were filled with fuel? -- so close to the train. >> there are some rail tank cars that were very close to the point of derailment. were they empty? i am told, i want to further verify this i'm told they were not full at the time of the accident. question right here. >> channel 11 news. [inaudible] >> do we know how long the engineer had operated this route and how long had he been with engineer, how long had he been with amtrak? that is the type of information i don't consider that perishable evidence. that is data we can get two weeks from now. what we're trying to do right now is get out there to measure everything that won't be here in two weeks. so to answer your question, we don't know. i can't tell you right now because i don't know how long he had been there but that is information we will get.

so we want to interview him. we want to review his training records his employment records. that's standard. question right here. >> when did the train start moving faster than the actual speed? >> the question is, when did the train start moving faster than the speed limit? we did not we have not gone back far enough in the data to see when that occurred. want to point out, that we're saying a speed limit through the curve is 50 miles per hour. however right before the curve the speed limit is 80. so 80 mile-an-hour speed limit. to enter the turn, enter the curve the engineer is supposed to slow the train to 50 but we will be putting together a timeline. we have good data from the event recorders. our priority was just to get an idea what the speed was at the derailment. there is question here. then i'm --

>> [inaudible]. >> could speed alone caused this about? that is exactly what we want to find out. why did this train derail. >> in your initial assessment were there any other obvious mechanical signal problems, anything along the track that stuck out? >> are there any obvious mechanical or signal difficulties that we found? we have not, again, we just basically got here. we, a lot of the emergency response. emergency response is, we have not got the thorough up close >> we will be downloading the signals to look at those. we will be doing a break test of the trains. we will be doing a digestive test. there's a lot of work that needs to be done, that will be done. and we will be letting you know periodically how we're going. again, look for another press

briefing tomorrow. tomorrow. i ban that thank you for your time. see you tomorrow. gerri: all right. if you're just joining us, we have just heard from ntsb board member robert sumwalt. he is talking about what the the ntsb is doing right now to investigate the train derailment in philadelphia. >> they have not yet talked to the engineer who was aboard and who was also refused to talk to the police there. what else did we learn here? i think this is critical. positive train control.

this is a way that speeding of this sort can be stopped. it's a system that can enforce the speed limit. it wasn't on this part of the track. it did not exist. in fact, sumwalt said, had it been there, it could have stopped the crash. that's important news to have. i want to bring in two people here. two former ntsb investigators. allen and russell for reaction here. russell to you now we know, speed limit was 50 miles per hour on that corner. it took it at 106. what do you make of that? >> it shouldn't have happened. gerri: how so? >> well in 2002, amtrak installed an advanced civil speed enforcement system, ases. which is a form of positive train control. one of which functions

is to protect against overspeed. (?) and they said that this area was not -- >> that's right. >> -- was not covered by this system. we have a train control issue regarding human performance and safety issues. >> so what specifically would you be asking questions about tonight, and who would you want to talk to? >> well, i'd want to talk to amtrak. back in march 22nd of 2012 they sent out a news release which said that by the end of 2012 that amtrak will have installed ptc on their -- on the rest of their -- >> positive train control. >> positive train control of which this aces system is a part on the northeast quarter. my question is then, who decided this area wouldn't be covered? and if it was covered, why wasn't it functioning at the time of the accident?

>> it's an open question at this point. we absolutely do not know the answer to that. and, of course, what was interesting about this press conference too was robert sumwalt was clear in saying, there are a lot of questions we haven't had answered. we're getting started. at least a week on the ground. they'll have more work to do in washington, dc. allen, to you. what did you make of this detail this level of detail? so the speed limit going into the curve, 80 miles per hour. the train was going 106 when the emergency brakes were applied. and then the last reference 102 miles per hour. what do you make of that allen? >> well, it seems like somehow the engineer didn't realize how fast -- how fast his training was going. so that's why the -- the safety board will really want to talk to him after his off sedation. if he's on sedation. gerri: is that what happened? >> oh, yeah. normally, we don't

interview operators whether they're pilots or engineers while they're heavily sedated. they need to be able to answer effectively. so yeah they'll wait until the tending physician says, he can be interviewed. now, one thing you should know gerri the evidence gathered in these ntsb investigations is not admissible in a court of law. so he can tell us exactly what happened and not worry about the fsar taking his license based on what he tells the ntsb. (?) i think that's one of the ways we're so able to get at the truth. and that's embedded in the law gerri. gerri: russell, to you. lots of questions obviously about the engineer. and what happened with the engineer. but could there be other systems other equipment that could have failed as well? because, look essentially sumwalt was saying we're going to look at the tracks the operations of the train the mechanical condition of the train emergency

responses, could something else have gone wrong? >> well, certainly something else could have gone wrong or maybe even contributed to this. to me, it depended on how fast he accelerated from up to 80 miles per hour. and then how close and how much time he had to deaccelerate. if he wasn't paying attention if he was checking his lunch making sure he had all his rules, who knows, if he wasn't paying attention, that train can easily accelerate away from him before he realized what was going on. i don't think that might have been the case. you don't know. >> allen, you're an expert in looking at the human aspect of this. the contribution of, you know this engineer. whose name we don't even know at this point. in a typical investigation, what would you look at? what are the range of questions you would have about that human? >> well, obviously you ask the obvious question that russell just mentioned. when did you start to

recognize there was a problem? why did you not deaccelerate earlier? but there's a lot of things you have to deal with. were there any visual illusions. we'd be asking him about the ergonomics of the controls and the displays in that cab. we'd also go back and ask him for a 72-hour inventory to see if he was well-rested. we know that in 2013 there was a passenger train crash where i believe it was reported that the engineer was literally asleep. now, russell may be able to amplify that. so there are a series of questions. we'll also go back into his training and his personality factors. has this guy had a lot of traffic accidents lately? has he gone through a divorce? a death in the family? other things that can degrade his human performance. all that ntsb will try to gather in the next days and weeks to better assess his ability to

handle the situation. of course obviously they're going to look at the automatic controls and the warnings and so on. >> all right allen, russell, sit tight. we'll come back to you on the other side of of the break. we have lots more on this ntsb hearing. we have more from our panel. more details on this crash just outside of philadelphia. stay with us.

♪ gerri: welcome back. we're covering this ntsb hearing that just finished moments ago. looking into this crash in philadelphia. you're seeing the pictures right here. last night tragic seven people dead. 200 people wounded. and i have with me now two former ntsb investigators who are expert in this kind of thing. allen and russell. we're getting back to both of you here. i want you to respond -- we have sound from sumwalt here to what he had to say about -- about the breaking and about speed. listen to this.

>> the engineer applied -- put the train into emergency braking. a few seconds before -- moments before the derailment. and in the next three seconds, three or four seconds, the speed of the train had only decreased to 102. as we know it takes a long time and distance to deaccelerate a train. >> russell, to you first. if the information ends at 102 miles per hour, is that when the train flew off the tracks in your view? >> oh, i think it was already probably getting ready to leave the track before that. the cause of the derailment was the speed of the train. i think that will become intuitively obvious as the investigation goes on. gerri: and allen, do you agree? >> yeah, i'd have to agree. at this point that's the preliminary indication. and that's way beyond a reasonable speed for that part of the track segment. gerri: all eyes on the engineer.

and as we've been saying all along. the engineer refused to be interviewed by philadelphia police there. the ntsb has not talked to him yet. we also heard from sumwalt on the issue of equipment. and i want to hear that again. let's hear from sumwalt one more time here. >> the train had recorders. it had forward-facing video cameras and it had an event data recorder. both of these recorders are being sent to our laboratory for analysis in washington, dc. gerri: all right. all that being sent to washington, dc. russell, how long will that take to analyze and what will we learn from that? >> well downloading the analysis -- the download will take maybe half an hour. it depends on how detailed they want to get in it. it's a printout, both a graphic printout and a list by second of what's happening in a variety of parameters with the

local motive and the train. (?) to me, probably what that data will confirm is kind of what we already know and it's just going to better document what the actual speeds were that were going. and it will also -- amtrak has on some of those data recorders what the cab signal system is getting. and so it's going to be telling us what in the cab the engineer should be seeing as far as cab signal. gerri: allen this idea about the positive train control and whether or not it was inn this part of the track. obviously sumwalt saying today no, it was not. could that have prevented this? that's what sumwalt said. it could have prevented this crash. do you agree? >> yes. certainly gerri automation -- there's always an issue about how much automation do you need on these vehicles whether it's an aircraft or a train. but it looks like this is a well-proven

concept. russell may know more about the details about how it works than i do. and somebody else pointed out this looked like a new locomotive cab. how much training has this particular engineer had on this new design cab? this is something they'll want to probe. gerri: all right russell. tell us about positive train control. how does it work? is it reliable? you say it's on many parts of the track. why not here? >> well good question. and that's the one that grates on me the most. if this system were in place, this accident wouldn't have happened. it enforces permanent civil speed restrictions and protects against overspeed exactly what happened in this accident. now the locomotive, 601, is isis is acses 64.

it's relatively new. i believe it came on board amtrak 2014, the last year. it's a relatively new engine in technology. gerri: that's what we're hearing. brand-new engines here. does that take additional training? do you have any idea whether someone who might be new to operating the train with that engine might have difficulty with it? >> that's something that the ntsb will have to investigate. i don't know if the controls and displays are that much different than the legacy models. but sumwalt's team will be probing that. and they'll be looking at the training that amtrak conducts for this. maybe they don't need a differences course to see how this equipment is different than what they're used to. it will be weeks before we know all these answers. gerri: lots more to come. i have lots of questions tonight. we'll come back with more on this. allen and russell sit

tight. we'll be be right back.

you're driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pick-up truck slams into your brand new car. one second it wasn't there and the next second... boom! you've had your first accident. now you have to make your first claim. so you talk to your insurance company and... boom! you're blindsided for a second time. they won't give you enough money to replace your brand new car. don't those people know you're already shaken up? liberty mutual's new car replacement will pay for the entire value of your car plus depreciation. call and for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch to liberty mutual insurance and you could save up to $423 dollars. call liberty mutual for a free quote today at see car

insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ gerri: continuing our coverage here of the ntsb hearing that just finished up moments ago, really with robert sumwalt. ntsb board member describing the agency's efforts to investigate the crash of the amtrak train last night. seven people dead. 200 injured. you're looking at pictures of it right now. the aftermath. i have two experts with me here. who can talk about what's going on here. two former ntsb investigators. alan diehl and russell quimby. i want to bring up sound gentlemen from this press conference where we hear robert talk about some of this equipment. listen to this. >> was the train equipped with any type

of device that could have or should have slowed it down to keep it within its limits? and amtrak, throughout a good bit of the northeastern carter has a system called advanced civil speed enforcement that's called acses, acses is installed throughout most of the northeast decarter for amtrak. however, (?) it is not installed for this area where the derailment occurred. >> now, what's important is that sumwalt said if it had been installed it could have prevented the crash. turning now to our experts. russell quimby to you. my confusion. is this equipment installed on the train or the tracks? how does it work? >> it's both. signals through the track. and it received it by equipment on the local locomotive. what bothers me, this

track -- the track speed for that curve is 50 miles per hour. that is significant. it's not a 15 miles per hour yard speed or coming into a station speed. it's a significant speed. why wasn't that area not covered by the acses system? >> now we've seen pictures of that corner. it's pretty tight. in fact, alan diehl, there's been an accident there before. this isn't the first time. it seems to me, if there was any place on these amtrak tracks that needed this kind of equipment, this would be it. alan, is it surprising to you that we're still talking about the fact that there was this equipment -- this equipment did not exist? >> yeah the fact it wasn't installed at obviously a very critical part of the track is something that i'm sure the board will ask a lot of tough questions. not of the engineer. but of the amtrak managers who are in charge of the schedule

for installing these safety devices. so, yes, that will be -- i imagine a big factor in this investigation. gerri: i want to get back to the black box, if i can. i always hear about this when there's a plane crash. but these trains also have black boxes that record information. you're looking at pictures of it right now. russell, to you, what will we get from this once this thing is opened up? you said it doesn't take long to download. what will we find out? russell: that event recorder will have all kinds of data in it. it has -- besides, of course speed. it has braking functions. it's got amperage. it will also have cab signal readings on it. it will have -- oh, maybe 20 parameters, maybe more. gerri: twenty parameters. sounds like a lot of information alan. but it seems to me, this is kind of the missing information here may be the engineer's interview and what the engineer will say about his

experience of this crash, what he was doing, where his mind was at. as this, you know, seven-car train about to enter the steep curve at 106 miles per hour. it seems to me that will answer the most questions that we need to understand. >> absolutely, gerri. but, like i said they'll ask a lot of questions about his training, state of his mental health how much sleep did he get the night before? you know we've seen engineers literally be asleep at the switch. i think that was the conclusion of that 2013 crash in the bronx. so they'll need to do that. of course, they've already i'm sure drawn his blood and they've taken urine samples. those are probably on the way to the lab. we sometimes find out that operators also don't realize, some of these over-the-counter medicines can have adverse effects on reaction times and

performance. there will be a lot of questions of the engineer. and maybe russell will want to chime in. that forward-looking video camera may reveal some kind of distraction. i'm not saying this happened. what if a car almost pulled up onto a track let's say a quarter mile before this happened. and he was looking back to make sure the car didn't collide with one of the rear passenger cars. so i don't know. we need to ask a lot of questions. and recorders are a godsend because they certainly can help us understand what really happened. gerri: well russell, good question here. were there distractions? there was a lot of freight. this was an area that was crowded with all kinds of equipment. tell us about your view on this forward-looking camera. russell: are you talking to me? gerri: russell quimby, please. russell: yeah there's no grade crossings on the northeast corner.

it wasn't like there would be a distraction from an automobile. one of the things about the event recorder it records as the cab alerter. if he doesn't make a manipulation, make a change in something even touch something you know, just like a touch lamp on your table where you just touch it and it goes on and off, that system will start to alert. and the faster the train is going the shorter the interval is between when he has to make an adjustment even if it's just -- so -- that's recorded. so if he's alert and awake or something, that should be -- gerri: you're going to know. that's interesting. >> to be able to tell. gerri: i want the two of you to respond to another question that came up this afternoon. one of the doctors who had treated so many of these people who had been injured in this crash said that so many people came in with rib fractures. now, they were expecting head injuries but they

found almost everybody had rib fractures. he assumed that people had rattled around in the train cars a lot. that's what he said. alan, you know, you can't travel t trains. which i have many many times. without noticing that there are no seat belts. what would -- what would this piece of information tell you as an investigator? >> well first of all, the question of seat belts on trains has been evaluated i think in 2007. there was a series of studies about whether or not they needed three-point harnesses and so on. but the fact there was a lack of head injuries. that tells me that maybe -- just maybe -- that there was some, even subliminal warning that this is not normal shaking. we're about to have an event here. and people were able to get into some kind of brace position and cover their faces. now, again that's why the ntsb will want to track down all 200 and

whatever it was 40-some passengers and occupants to answer that question. if you have time to get into the brace position that can make a big difference in the type of injuries and the degree of trauma. that will be a question as mr. sumwalt said, there will be a lot of activity over the next few weeks trying to answer that kind of question. gerri: all right. alan russell we'll take a break. we'll be back with more on this ntsb press conference and the crash that you're seeing pictures of right here. we'll be right back.

♪ >> welcome back. we're continuing to cover press conference just moments ago with robert sumwalt. ntsb board member investigating that crash in philadelphia. my two guests two former ntsb investigators. alan diehl and russell quimby. i'll ask a quick reaction, guys. next steps. what happens next? obviously all this data gets analyzed. it will take a week to

do according to sumwalt. alan, to you first. what will be the most important thing these investigators do? >> interview the engineer. gerri: that's number one. russell, do you agree? >> yeah, i would agree with that. and the next thing i would say is, interview the amtrak officials or whoever was responsible for not ensuring that there was a speed enforcement system employed on that particular part of the track. gerri: all right. i'm just going to wrap up a couple of points that we heard today here, which is that the train was going 106 miles per hour when it hit that curve. and that's according to the information that was recorded by the train. that's what we found out today within the last hour. that's the headline here. and also that a system that allows the train to stop automatically not employed on this stretch of track. not available. positive train control not there. busy day. alan and russell, thank you so much for coming on the show tonight.

we really appreciate it. and i got to say good night. that's it for tonight's willis report. "making money" with charles payne is up next. eel continuehe'll continue to cover this story. have a great night. ♪ ♪ >> i'm tom sullivan in for charles payne. you're watching "making money." we have lots of breaking news for you tonight. us embassy in afghanistan says a us citizen has been killed after a guest house in kabul was attacked by gunman. it hosted a party for foreigners. several dozen people including americans likely were being held captive. details about exactly how many people were held at kabul's park palace hotel remains unclear. no one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. we'll bring more of that breaking details to you of course as they come in. more breaking news now the ntsb says the train