Train Accidents Help
December 24, 2008Chatsworth train crash victims file lawsuit against companies, engineer
Several victims of the Chatsworth train accident have filed a lawsuit against the driver of the train and the two companies that employed him. The negligence suit against Veolia Transportation Services, its subsidiary Connex and the estate of engineer Robert Sanchez was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by four victims who were injured in the Chatsworth train wreck and the mother of a passenger who was killed in the accident.The September 2008 train crash in Chatsworth occurred when a Metrolink commuter train traveling north from Los Angeles passed a red light warning it to stop and collided head-on with an oncoming cargo train. A total of 25 people on the train—including Sanchez—were killed in the train accident. An additional 134 passengers were injured, making it the worst train wreck in the U.S. in the last 15 years.
In October, the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that Sanchez had been sending text messages from his cell phone just minutes before the train he was operating collided with the oncoming cargo train. The NTSB’s investigation determined that in addition to running a warning light that could have averted the crash, Sanchez also failed to apply the train’s brakes before the collision.