Under police questioning several hours after an Amtrak train plowed into his trailer, truck driver John R. Stokes lamented, “It had to be the fast one,” an official involved in the investigation of the fatal accident said Friday.
Authorities said the comment could play a key role in interpreting Stokes’ state of mind just before he drove his truck onto the tracks Monday night on McKnight Road near Bourbonnais.
Slow-moving freight trains travel up and down the rails all day long in the rural community about 50 miles south of Chicago, but only two fast trains–Amtrak’s No. 58 and No. 59 City of New Orleans runs–barrel through at authorized top speeds of 79 m.p.h.
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The police interrogator characterized Stokes’ demeanor as chagrined in the initial interview after the wreck that killed 11 train passengers, and the officer inferred that the trucker’s statement meant he had thought the oncoming City of New Orleans was a freight, according to an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.
Stokes, 58, has told authorities that he didn’t see the oncoming train and that the warning bells and lights at the crossing activated after he pulled onto the tracks.
Two more people claiming to have witnessed the accident stepped forward Friday, but investigators–who in the vital hours immediately after the crash were hindered by a complete absence of witness accounts–said there currently is no way to characterize any of the statements as agreeing with one possible crash scenario or another.
A total of three witnesses had been interviewed by Friday, and “a number of other witnesses” who contacted the safety board by phone will be questioned in the coming days, one official said.
“We have begun the interviewing process and will be determining the validity of their statements,” said J.S. Dunn, the NTSB’s chief investigator on the case. He said most of the 30-member NTSB team was returning to Washington Friday and that the goal of the investigation–determining the probable cause of the accident–would take up to a year.
One of two new witnesses was identified as “a young local male” who at the time of the crash was standing more than 100 yards away near the now-closed Wolohan Lumber Co. yard, which was converted into a makeshift morgue after the accident.
Authorities said the man told them that the warning lights at the crossing were flashing when Stokes’ steel-hauling semi-trailer entered the tracks.
Another man, who contacted officials through his attorney, also said the signal lights were flashing.
Accident investigators went out to the scene Friday night to determine if the two men could have spotted the signal lights and crossing gates from where they said they were standing.
The new accounts contradict an earlier statement by a restaurant worker from Chicago, who said he was two cars behind Stokes’ truck at the crossing. That man said the crossing gates were up and the warning lights were off when the truck began moving across the tracks. But one official said Friday that the NTSB was concerned about a language barrier–the restaurant worker is fluent only in Spanish–and the man’s statement “is unclear and may be changing.”
Two women who the restaurant worker said were in the car in front of his and directly behind the truck have not come forward, police said.
NTSB investigators and police have said physical evidence–truck tire tracks in fresh mud and a damaged crossing gate–suggest Stokes might have zigzagged around lowered crossing gates in an effort to beat the train. A preliminary damage report on the lead locomotive has shown that the truck was at a skewed angle at impact–possibly indicating Stokes had veered around the barriers.
Stokes’ attorney described his client on Friday as “very emotional and sad.”
The attorney, Leonard Sacks of Kankakee, said the Manteno truck driver has not been charged in what has been described by Kankakee County authorities as an ongoing investigation by Bourbonnais police.
Sacks declined to comment on Stokes’ version of the events.
In another development, a day after the NTSB said testing on the railroad signals showed there were “no indications of a signal malfunction,” officials said they have decided to take another look.
Among the discrepancies they will be checking out is a four-minute difference in recordings of the moment of impact between truck and train. The event recorder, or “black box” on the locomotive showed the time as 9:47 p.m. Monday, while the signal box at the side of the tracks indicated the train reached the center of the crossing at 9:51 p.m.
Thirteen survivors of the crash were still being treated for injuries Friday. More than 120 of the 216 passengers and crew members aboard the 14-car train were hurt.
Meanwhile, the Kankakee County coroner officially released the names of the people killed in the crash Friday night:
– Helena Adkins, 42, Bremerton, Wash.
– June Bonnin, 46, Nesbit, Miss.
– Sheena Dowe, 22, Jackson, Miss.
– Lacey Lipscomb, 8, Lake Cormorant, Miss.
– Rainey Lipscomb, 10, Lake Cormorant, Miss.
– Keiichi Nomura, 20, Tokushima, Japan
– Jessica Tickle, 11, Nesbit, Miss.
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– Leona Vant, 72, Bremerton, Wash.
– Vergil Vant, 76, Bremerton, Wash.
– Wendy Vant, 42, Bremerton, Wash.
– Marie Munson, 64, Mt. Prospect
Munson had upgraded her coach ticket to the sleeper car–where all the fatalities occurred–about a week before the trip.
After four agonizing days of grieving, praying and waiting for the official word from the coroner, two of Munson’s six children, Robert and Tiffany, held an impromptu press conference in Bourbonnais Friday, their voices occasionally drowned out by the horns of passing locomotives.
“The waiting has been the worst part of it,” said Tiffany Munson, of Elgin.
“The minute I heard, I knew my mother was gone. It is just waiting for the verification of it. I want to be able to put her to rest.”
Marie Munson was on vacation and traveling to one of her favorite cities, New Orleans, to see relatives, Tiffany Munson said. Family members said she hated to fly.
Referring to her mother’s decision that placed her in the sleeper car, she said,
“There was a reason why a room was available,” she said. “I believe 100 percent that everything happens for a reason. I know that God wanted her and heaven will be a better place.”