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Article snippet: DUPONT, Wash. — The investigation into the fatal Amtrak crash near Tacoma, Wash., is focusing on the possibility that the engineer was distracted by a cellphone, another person in his cab or something else when the train barreled into a curve 50 miles per hour over the posted speed limit. The crew did not activate the emergency brake before the derailment on Monday morning, said Bella Dinh-Zarr, the National Transportation Safety Board official overseeing the investigation, which might indicate that the engineer failed to perceive the danger. At a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, she said the badly damaged cameras in the engineer’s cab — one facing forward, and the other inward, toward the person driving the train — had been sent to the safety board’s laboratory in Washington D.C. There, investigators will try to extract images showing what went on in the moments before the train plunged into a stand of trees and onto a busy highway, killing three people. Ms. Dinh-Zarr stressed that the crew members — all of them hospitalized — had not yet been interviewed, and most of the evidence not yet analyzed. A data recorder on the train, carrying 77 passengers and seven crew members, indicated that it was racing at 80 miles per hour into a curve that is limited to 30 miles per hour, the safety board said. Excessive speed appeared to be the immediate cause of the crash, but the reason for that speed remained unknown. “Distraction is one of our most wanted list of prio... Link to the full article to read more