Amtrak derailment – live: At least three dead and 50 hurt after train incident in Missouri today

Here’s some more detail on NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, taken from a transcript of her briefing shared with The Independent. The transcript appears to have been automated, so there might be some errors.

“We are requesting information [from] any sort of forward facing or internal facing cameras – that way we can see what was in front of the train or what was going inside on inside the locomotive – as well as any other recorder information that could be provided on the speed of the train at the time of the derailment.

“We’re asking for information on the manifest so we can confirm the number of passengers and the crew members on board,and we’re looking at information on the line and the crossing itself.

“And of course [we’re] talking with Amtrak about train operations. So there is a lot going on, but a lot of our work is going to occur once we get on scene.”

Here’s what we know at midnight Missouri time.

• At least three people are dead and 50 have been injured, including 13 who were taken to hospital.

• The Amtrak train hit a dump truck that was crossing the rails, at a place where officials believe there were no warning lights or electronically controlled gates.

• The train was a Southwest Chief service making a two-day trip from Los Angeles to Chicago, derailing at about 1:42pm local time on Monday.

• Eight passenger carriages and two locomotives were derailed, most of them flipping onto their side so that passengers had to climb out upwards through the doors.

• The National Transportatation Safety Board (NTSB) is sending a team to investigate the incident and has requested camera footage and other data from Amtrak, but the cause of the tragedy is not known.

• One passenger, Dax McDonald, said he remembered seeing two trucks approaching the rails just before the accident, and thinking to himself “this guy better slow down”.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted on Monday to express grief over the horrific train derailment in Missouri.

“My heart goes out to all those affected by today’s horrific train derailment in Missouri,” she said. “While there are no words that can console those grieving lost loved ones, may it bring them comfort that so many Americans pray for them on this tragic day.”

Chuy García, a Congressman who represents a part of Chicago, said his thoughts were “with the families of the passengers who lost their lives, and those injured.”

Missouri governor Mike Parson said: “We are saddened to hear of the Amtrak train derailment in Chariton County this afternoon. @MoPublicSafety, @MSHP troopers, and other emergency management personnel are responding. We ask Missourians to join us in praying for all those impacted.”

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said trains won’t be able to run on the track for “a matter of days” while the investigators gather evidence.

She said it was too early to speculate on why the truck was on the tracks.

Dax McDonald, the software engineer from Phoenix, Arizona who survived the derailment, told the Washington Post more details about his experience.

He said he had been travelling from Flagstaff, Arizona to Iowa with his mother and two sisters to meet up with other family for the Fourth of July.

The trio had decided to take a train rather than a plane due to the soaring cost of fuel. They were riding in the second last carriage when everyone was jolted forward with a loud bang.

“The real insanity happened a second after that. You could see it start to tip… I basically looked over to see [my two sisters] careening toward me,” he said. His mother had been in the bathroom and had to climb on suitcases to escape.

Afterwards the carriage was full of broken glass and gravel. One woman hit her head and had a seizure, requiring help from Mr McDonald and others. Then they began to clamber out of the windows, now facing upwards.

Mr McDonald also shed some light on the circumstances of the derailment, saying that he saw two trucks through the train’s windows approaching the rails. “This guy had better slow down,” he thought about one of them.

The Missouri state highway patrol said in a detailed statement that first responders started to arrive at approximately 1.02pm.

“Preliminary investigation indicates an Amtrak passenger train traveling to Chicago, Illinois, struck a dump truck at the railroad crossing on Porche Prairie Avenue,” it said.

“The train had approximately 8 cars, including a baggage car. Seven cars have derailed. There are multiple injuries and we can confirm there are 3 fatalities 2 on the train and 1 in the dump truck.”

“Personnel are currently working to secure the scene. The train had approximately 207 passengers and crew members. All injured and uninjured occupants of the train have been transported from the scene,” it added.

Jason Drinkard, who was travelling with his students and his wife to Chicago in the train that derailed, tells The Independent’s Josh Marcus that it was chaos as people “were bleeding and were banged up”.

“My kids were super stoked about this,” he said. “As they got closer and closer, you could feel the excitement building. We were talking about what restaurants we were gonna go to, what sights we were going to see.”

“I looked out the left window and you just see this cloud of brown dust,” he said. “The next thing you know, you feel the car start tipping. Once it went over, it was one of those, you think, I can’t believe this is actually happening. For me everything was just in slow motion until it came to a rest.”

ABC News has released video footage shared by a person involved in the crash, showing passengers sitting on top of the fallen train.

“Well, looks like we’re gonna be late to Chicago,” says the person filming the video, appearing breathless and possibly distraught. “We hit a truck. Someone was crossing the tracks.”

Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, has addressed the tragedy on Twitter.

“Having relied on Amtrak to cross our state throughout my college years and long after, I remember the ride well.

“My heart goes out to the passengers and all impacted by today’s event, and I extend my thanks to those responding to today’s derailment on the scene and at the hospital.”

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said it will send a 16-member “go team” to investigate the derailment in person, expected to arrive at the scene tomorrow.

In a news conference this evening, NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, who will be part of the team, said the agency is requesting speed data from along the route and on-board recorder logs and camera footage from the train.

“With the team, we’ll have specialists from mechanical, from signal systems from operations and survival factors,” she said. “We’ll have a highway person, a drone operator, and some team members from NTSB’s Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance to work with survivors and families of those who were involved in the derailment.”

The NTSB is a federal agency that investigates transport accidents, and has probed previous Amtrak derailments in Montana in 2021 and Washington state in 2019.

Those reports don’t always shed much light. In the 2021 accident, the NTSB concluded that the train was equipped with an automatic braking system that was properly switched on, but offered no clues on what exactly caused the tragedy.