AP Tech Staffer Among 7 Killed in ‘Disastrous’ Amtrak Derailment

The train barreled into a curve at 106 miles an hour, more than twice the speed limit, the NTSB said Wednesday

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Updated at 9.15 p.m. PT: Rachel Jacobs, CEO of ApprenNet, an education technology company in Philadelphia, was confirmed Wednesday night as among the seven dead, reported The New York Times.

Previously:

AP tech staffer Jim Gaines was among seven people killed in the deadly derailment of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.

The video software architect was headed to his Plainsboro, New Jersey, home after attending meetings at the news agency’s Washington, D.C. office, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Doctors said Gaines suffered massive chest trauma in the accident and died around midnight at Temple University Hospital.

Gaines joined the AP in 1998 and was a key factor in nearly all of the news agency’s video initiatives, including the successful rollout of high-definition video and the AP’s Video Hub — a service that provides live video to hundreds of clients around the world.

He won AP’s “Geek of the Month” award in 2012 for his “tireless dedication and contagious passion” to technological innovation, the company said. He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline; his son, Oliver, 16, and daughter, Anushka, 11.

Shortly after the crash, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter described the accident site as “an absolute disastrous mess,” adding,  “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

Also killed in the collision — a Naval Academy midshipman who was on leave and a Wells Fargo senior vice president. Rachel Jacobs, a CEO at Philadelphia-based tech company ApprenNet, who lives in New York City, is among the missing.

Approximately 238 passengers and five crew members were on board the Northeast Regional Train 188 when it derailed, sending cars tumbling off the tracks. Over 200 people were injured and many of them suffered rib injuries. The accident closed the nation’s busiest rail corridor between New York and Washington, D.C.

The engineer has been identified as 32-year-old Brandon Bostian, of Queens, New York, who had worked for Amtrak for nine years, the first half of which he spent as a passenger conductor before starting his current role in December 2010.

The derailment took place as the train entered a curve at 106 m.p.h. — more than twice the 50 m.p.h. speed limit for that stretch of tracks, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. The train’s engineer applied the emergency brakes “just moments” before the train derailed, said NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt.

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