Attorneys: Metrolink driver was negligent

LOS ANGELES — Attorneys representing at least a dozen victims of the 2005 Metrolink derailment in Glendale that killed 11 people said Thursday that they had uncovered evidence that proved the train’s engineer was at fault for the accident.

Juan Manuel Alvarez was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms last year after a jury found him guilty of parking his Jeep Cherokee on the tracks near Chevy Chase Drive Jan. 26, 2005. The failed suicide attempt caused the derailment, which sent Metrolink 901 off the tracks into a parked Union Pacific freighter, killing 11 passengers and injuring nearly 200 others.

It was the worst crash in the rail agency’s history until Metrolink 111 crashed head-on with a freighter Sept. 12 in Chatsworth, killing 25.

In a press briefing Thursday morning on the steps of a Los Angeles Superior Courthouse, attorneys for the victims of the Glendale crash alleged the Metrolink 901 engineer violated operating policy when he failed to immediately apply emergency brakes upon seeing the Jeep Cherokee.

The engineer noticed the Jeep when he was about three-quarters of a mile away, but did not apply full emergency brakes until about 870 feet from the point of impact — a lapse of about six seconds, alleged Jerome Ringler, the lead plaintiff attorney in the class-action lawsuit.

The new evidence was based on a deposition the engineer gave in December and corroborated by the train’s “black box,” which records onboard operations, Ringler said.

The testimony amounted to “an outright indictment of Metrolink operator error, and just like Chatsworth, these horrible accidents were caused by engineer operator error,” he said.

Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board are still months away from releasing their report on the cause of the Chatsworth crash, but have said the Metrolink engineer, La Crescenta resident Robert Sanchez, was sending and receiving cellular text messages in the seconds before the collision — a violation of operating policy.

Sanchez died in the crash.

The coalition of attorneys suing Metrolink for the Glendale derailment said Thursday that they had advised their clients not to comment on the new evidence, which will be introduced when the trial starts in June.