Remembering the Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia 10 years later
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- It has now been 10 years since an Amtrak train derailed in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, leading to a horrific crash that left eight people dead and nearly 200 other people injured.
The train departed 30th Street Station around 9:10 p.m. on May 12, 2015, en route to New York City.
The train entered the Frankford Junction curve at 106 mph, where the NTSB said the speed is limited to 50 mph.
The engineer, Brian Bostian, applied the brakes, but it was too late. The train derailed near the intersection of Frankford Avenue and Wheatsheaf Lane. Of the seven cars, one was destroyed and three others rolled over onto their sides.
There were 245 passengers, five on-duty Amtrak employees and three off-duty Amtrak employees on board.
The eight people killed were all passengers. A total of 185 people were transported to area hospitals.
"Resiliance is a big part of it"
Among the injured that night was Chef Eli Kulp, who had recently been named one of the country's best new chefs.
"You never really move on," he said.
He suffered a spinal cord injury and lost full use of his legs and hands, ending his ability to cook professionally.
Kulp says it was his son, Dylan - who was just three years old at the time - who kept him motivated through his recovery.
"He's a big reason why I am still here today. I went through a really challenging time, a couple years of getting back on my feet and figuring things out again," he said.
A decade since the crash, Kulp's impact on the food world is stronger than ever.
He hosts two podcasts, amplifying culinary voices in the Philly food scene. He is a partner at High Street Hospitality Group, and he just launched the city's first-ever restaurant awards show.
"There's no quick fix to it, you wish you would wake up one morning and it would all be gone, but you just have to get through it," he said. "Resilience is a big part of it."
Engineer was distracted, NTSB finds
The NTSB found that Bostian was distracted because a SEPTA train had made an emergency stop after being struck by some kind of projectile, and the SEPTA engineer said he had glass in his face.
The Amtrak train passed the stopped SEPTA train, and the NTSB found Bostian accelerated shortly afterward. Investigators say Bostian had lost "situational awareness."
Bostian had listened to a six-minute conversation between the SEPTA engineer and the dispatcher. Bostian told investigators the engineer "sounded very upset," according to NTSB.
Bostian also told them he had a coworker who once had "glass impact his eye from hitting a tractor-trailer, and I know how terrible that is."
"His loss of awareness, combined with the darkness, may have led him either to believe he had already passed the curve at Frankford Junction or to forget about the curve," the NTSB report reads.
Bostian was charged with eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, hundreds of counts of reckless endangerment, and causing a catastrophe, but was found not guilty of all charges in March 2022.
Photos from the Philadelphia Amtrak train crash:
The NTSB found that a system called Positive Train Control had not yet been implemented at the site of the crash, which would have slowed the train if the engineer failed to do so. The system has since been put in place.
8 killed in 2015 Philadelphia Amtrak crash
The passengers who died were identified as:
Justin Zemser, 20, who was on a break from the U.S. Naval Academy and heading home to Rockaway Beach, New York.
Rachel Jacobs, a 39-year-old a mom, was commuting home to New York from her new job as CEO of the Philadelphia educational software startup ApprenNet.
Giuseppe Piras, 41, an executive from Italy who was in the United States on business.
Derrick Griffith, 42, who was a father and the dean of student affairs and enrollment management at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.
Bob Gildersleeve, 45, who lived near Baltimore, was married and had two teenage children at the time of the crash.
Laura Finamore, 47, was returning to New York City from a memorial service for a college friend's mother.
Jim Gaines, a 48-year-old married father of two, was an Associated Press video software architect.
Abid Gilani, 55, was returning to New York from his uncle's funeral in Virginia. The bank executive split time between New York and California.
