A team of National Transportation Safety Board investigators will arrive in Missouri on Tuesday to probe the derailment of an Amtrak train that left at least three people dead and sent surviving passengers scrambling from the wreckage.
The derailment occurred as the train, traveling eastbound to Chicago, collided with a dump truck at a crossing near the town of Mendon in north-central Missouri at about 12:42 p.m. Monday, according to Amtrak. Eight of the train’s cars and two locomotives left the track, the company said.
“We started feeling the train tilting over to the right. That’s when it kind of went through my mind that this is life or death. This is very serious,” Dax McDonald, who was on the train with his sister Samantha, told CNN’s “New Day.”
Their train car had tipped over and was laying on its side.