Bad Truck Brakes Blamed for Nevada Amtrak Crash

The National Transportation Safety Board has concluded that a distracted driver in a truck with bad brakes was the probable cause of a fiery collision with an Amtrak passenger train that left six dead in northern Nevada last year.

On a 5-0 vote, the panel also agreed Tuesday that insufficient strength of passenger car walls likely contributed to the number of deaths and more than a dozen injuries after the truck skidded 300 feet into the train on June 24, 2011.

NTSB investigators said the truck driver killed in the crash apparently didn’t notice the train because he was fatigued as a result of inconsistent sleeping patterns, was suffering from ankle pain or possibly could have been checking messages on his cellphone. But the panel decided there wasn’t enough evidence of any of those things to include in the formal probable cause finding issued in Washington.