An engineer's error was blamed for Friday's deadly train collision in Los Angeles that killed at least 18 people and injured 135 others, a railway spokeswoman said Saturday.
A contract engineer who was driving the Metrolink train was responsible for the crash, said Denise Tyrell of Metrolink, a railway commuter transportation system that covers the Los Angels metropolitan area.
A Metrolink commuter train collided head-on with a freight train in the Chatsworth area, about 50 kilometers northeast of downtown Los Angeles, Friday afternoon, in the deadliest accident in the system's 12-year history.
The confirmed death toll of accident rose to 18 overnight, and officials feared that more bodies are expected to be removed from the wreckage as rescuers get in the lower level of a smashed double-teck passenger car later in the day.
Although officials noted the chance of finding additional survivors was diminishing, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at the scene that "the emphasis is still on the rescue effort " at this moment.
The ill-fated Metrolink train smashed into the freight train from the opposite around 4:30 p.m. Friday afternoon. There were 225 passengers on the commuter train and three people abroad the freight train, officials said.
Tyrell said the engineer driving the commuter train was supposed to pull off in response to a red light and wait for the other train to go by, but he failed to do that.Mayor Villaraigosa called earlier the collision "a human tragedy that is beyond words."
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to tour the crash site Saturday afternoon. The governor earlier in a statement promised the state's support and cooperation for the rescue effort.
"We are working to ensure that Los Angeles County's emergency response agencies have any and all assistance they may need from the state," he said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which reportedly had investigators at the scene last night, is poised to officially take over the investigation later in the day after the rescue operation completes.
Friday's crash is the deadliest accident in the history of Metrolink, which began to serve the Los Angeles metropolitan area in 1992. It is also believed the deadliest U.S. passenger train crash in nearly two decades.