ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Federal investigators are focusing on why a switch failed to change positions in the monorail crash that killed an operator at Walt Disney World over the weekend.
The National Transportation Safety Board reported that no malfunctions have been found with the automatic train stop system, nor with any mechanical parts of the switch. No mechanical problems were found with the two trains that collided Sunday.
The accident killed 21-year-old Austin Wuennenberg.
A pink train was backing up in order to change tracks from the Epcot loop to the Magic Kingdom loop shortly before the accident. However, the switch that would have allowed the pink train to be routed to the Magic Kingdom loop had not changed positions. As a result, the pink train went back down the same track it had come from and collided with a purple train controlled by Wuennenberg, according to the NTSB.
The agency said it appears Wuennenberg tried to put his train in reverse to avoid the collision.
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