The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that last May's Amtrak crash in Philadelphia probably stemmed from the engineer's being distracted, leading him to lose track of where he was and speed up into a curve at more than double the 50 mile per hour limit, causing a derailment that killed eight passengers and sent more than 180 others to area hospitals.

经过一年的调查，董事会于5月19日引用了工程师布兰登·波斯蒂安（Brandon Bostian）的“丧失情境意识”，并导致过度速度，这是2015年5月12日夜间出轨的可能原因。

NTSB调查显示,Bostian蜜蜂n distracted by radio broadcasts in the minutes before the derailment from a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority commuter rain heading south on the same rail corridor. The SEPTA train had made an emergency stop nearby after being hit by rocks, sending pieces of glass into its operator’s face.

But the NTSB also said that the absence of operating positive train control technology (PTC) was a contributing factor in the crash of Amtrak train 188, saying that the system could have prevented the train’s acceleration and derailment.

NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart called the accident “wholly preventable,” and noted that the board has called many times for U.S. railroads to install the PTC technology, beginning in 1970.

Amtrak had installed PTC on part of its Northeast Corridor by the time of the May crash, but it hadn’t been activated on the segment where the accident occurred, northeast of downtown Philadelphia.

联邦铁路管理局负责人莎拉·芬伯格（Sarah Feinberg）告诉记者：“可能没有更好的例子说明为什么我们需要在此事故中尽快实施PTC。”

Congress in 2008 mandated that railroads install PTC by Dec. 31, 2015, but with most railroads expecting to miss the deadline, Congress last year extended that deadline to the end of 2018 and also permitted railroads to seek a further waiver, to 2020.

Amtrak主席约瑟夫·鲍德曼（Joseph Boardman）在NTSB会议结束后接受记者说，Amtrak现在已完全安装在东北走廊的主线上，并满足了2015年年度安装截止日期。大多数其他铁路远远落后于Amtrak的实施。

Hart said Amtrak had implemented PTC on all of the Northeast Corridor sections that it owns. A stretch of 56 miles that New York and Connecticut own is to get PTC by the end of 2018.

Asked what other administrative actions FRA can take to speed up PTC installation, Feinberg said the agency is collecting data from railroads and “posting it on line so that the public can view it and join with us in holding railroads’ feet to the fire.”

But with the PTC extension measure so recently enacted, Congress appears to have little interest in taking further action on the issue any time soon.

The board ruled out as possible factors such things as the train’s mechanical systems and track conditions. It also found that Bostian had passed alcohol and drug tests, wasn’t using his cell phone at the time of the accident and had a good record as an engineer.

Hart said that after examining those factors, the “best conclusion” NTSB was able to reach was that after being distracted, Bostian mistakenly thought he was a little farther along on the route than he actually was, possibly thinking he was on a section with a 110 mph speed limit.

NTSB及其发现还发布了11项新的安全建议，其中包括Amtrak的一项建议，呼吁铁路增加其机组人员的培训策略，以处理“长期，非典型情况”的多项任务，并保持对火车运营的关注。

It made a similar training recommendation to the American Public Transportation Association and the Association of American Railroads.

Most of the new NTSB recommendations were directed to the Federal Railroad Administration. They include requiring railroads to install equipment to help crews identify their location and display their route in areas where PTC won’t be installed.

Last July, less than two months after the crash, NTSB issued a recommendation to Amtrak, and reiterated an earlier recommendation to FRA, to install inward- and outward-facing video and audio recorders in locomotive cabs. The new report repeats both of those items.

The NTSB has no regulatory authority.

Boardman said, “We’re going to take what the NTSB has told us today and look for improvements at Amtrak.”

He added that Amtrak officials believe they know what improvements need to be made in its employee training. “We have an excellent training program for engineers,” Boardman said. “We’ll now adjust that based on what the NTSB is talking about.

“This derailment is just such a textbook case of an engineer who has an unblemished record. He has no problems in his background. He has good training," said Hart. "But this shows that any human, on even their best day, can make a mistake. And that’s the reason that PTC is so important."

Hart said it’s “very disappointing” that most railroads didn’t meet the 2015 deadline for installing the technology, adding, “as far as we’re concerned, the [new] deadline is not 2018. The deadline is the next PTC-preventable crash.”