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Metrolink Witnesses: Signal Was Green Before Crash

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Oct 4, 2008 1:59 pm US/Pacific

Metrolink Witnesses: Signal Was Green Before Crash

LOS ANGELES Three witnesses, including the security guard at the Chatsworth Metrolink Station, insist that Train 111 had a green signal to proceed just before it slammed head-on into a freight train, killing 25 people, the Los Angeles Times reports Saturday.

If true, those statements contradict findings by the National Transportation Safety Board that the signal was red, and that engineer Robert M. Sanchez was responsible for the Sept. 11 wreck, the worst train disaster in Los Angeles in five decades.

The Times quotes Chris Watson, a 20-year-old security guard who says he was standing on the platform looking north at the signals that governed the train. His statement is corroborated by two others.

"I saw the light was green," he told The Times. "Everything was all right."

"The light was green," said Bob Atkinson, 65, a retired movie projector technician and a train buff who knew the train's engineer, Robert Sanchez.

Another train buff, 56-year-old Chris Cassel, told The Times that Sanchez "had a full-blown green light when he left."
 
NTSB experts have said that eyewitnesses to major disasters often disagree as to major details. But the three statements, made to The Times in joint interviews at the Chatsworth station, cast doubts on claims that Sanchez was attending to a text messaging device and missed seeing the red light.

NTSB officials would not comment to The Times on the witness reports.

(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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