Hoboken train's event recorder located

HOBOKEN, N.J., Sept. 30 (UPI) -- One of two event-recording devices was recovered from the commuter train that crashed into New Jersey Transit's Hoboken Terminal, investigators confirmed Friday.

The commuter train plowed into the terminal during the morning rush-hour commute on Thursday, killing one woman and injuring more than 100 other people. It also caused extensive damage to the terminal.

T. Bella Dihn-Zarr, National Transportation Safety Board vice chairwoman, said it was not yet safe enough for investigators to remove the second event recorder because of the terminal's collapsed roof. The recorders could offer evidence regarding the speed of the New Jersey Transit train at the moment of impact, and why it did not slow as it arrived at the terminal, used by 100,000 commuters daily.

The train was not equipped with software that may have prevented the accident.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of Thursday's crash, so it remains unknown if Positive Train Control, or PTC, technology, could have avoided the crash. PTC is an automatic braking system which, among other features, slows trains traveling faster than their assigned speed limit.

New Jersey Transit's most recent quarterly filing with the Federal Railroad Administration, in July 2016, indicated that none of its more than 400 trains were equipped with PTC. A U.S. Department of Transportation progress report, dated Sept. 13, added that none of the company's employees were trained to use the technology.

The National Transportation Safety Board has, for decades, encouraged legislators to make PTC technology mandatory on all U.S. trains, NBC News reported Friday. The NTSB has argued the software could have prevented as many as 145 rail accidents since 1969 and saved the lives of 288 people. The U.S. Congress finally mandated the installation of the technology in 2008, after 25 people died in a Los Angeles commuter train accident. New Jersey Transit has until the end of 2018 to equip its trains with PTC; a 2015 deadline was extended after the House Transportation Committee was told the nation's railroads could not install the technology in time.