Crime & Safety

UPDATE: All Eight Fatal Victims From Amtrak Crash Identified

Amtrak engineer was contacted and has agreed to an interview, an NTSB investigator said.

All eight people killed in the Tuesday train derailment in Philadelphia have now been identified.

The engineer of the Amtrak train that crashed and injured more than 200 people also was contacted and has agreed to an interview, an NTSB investigator said.

Three of the fatal victims identified Thursday included:

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  • Laura Finamore, 47, of Douglaston, N.Y., who worked in corporate real estate, according to an online statement from the family.
  • Italian national Giuseppe Piras, who was visiting the United States on business, according to CNN. Italy’s consul general in Philadelphia, Andrea Canepari, confirmed the death.
  • Bob Gildersleeve, 45, of Maryland, who was reportedly in the first car of the train traveling from Washington to New York when it crashed, according to NBCPhiladelphia. He was pulled from the wreckage of Amtrak train 188 Thursday, two days after it derailed north of Philadelphia, according to reports.

Since the derailment, Gildersleeve’s family had not heard from him and his teenage son released a video asking for information about his dad.

After officials announced they found an eighth deceased passenger in the wreckage Thursday afternoon, Gildersleeve’s aunt told New York Daily News: “They found him.”

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At a Thursday press conference, Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer said a search dog found a body in the first car - the final fatal victim to be found.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter told reporters that all passengers and crew members are now accounted for, and no more bodies will be recovered.

Most of the train cars were removed by trailers during the night, with only two cars remaining at the scene. NTSB investigators said they will conduct a 3-D scan of the cars and most likely have them removed by the end of Thursday.

Investigators say they’re also looking into the actions of the engineer involved in the Amtrak Train 188 crash in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia Tuesday night.

After reviewing the train’s data recordings, Robert Sumwalt of the NTSB said the train’s speed increased from 70 to 100 mph within a minute just before the crash.

Brandon Bostian, 32, of Queens, N.Y. only remembers operating the train in the general area of the Amtrak train crash and being thrown about the car in the immediate aftermath - but not the moment of the actual accident, his attorney told ABC News Wednesday night.

The train was traveling 106 mph going into the turn that has a 50 mph speed limit, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.

The engineer applied the brakes three seconds before the derailment, bringing the speed down to 102 mph, according to the NTSB. “Further calibrations are being conducted.” the NTSB said on Twitter.

Bostian’s attorney also says the engineer has voluntarily provided a blood sample and his cell phone to investigators, according to the report.

Nutter spoke strongly about Bostian’s possible involvement with the derailment, telling CNN Wednesday night: “Clearly it was reckless in terms of the driving by the engineer. There’s no way in the world he should have been going that fast into the curve.”

Officials, meanwhile, have not confirmed the names of the victims, but they have been identified by family members.

Besides Piras, Finamore and Gildersleeve, they include Justin Zemser, 20, a student from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis; Derrick Griffith, 42, dean of student affairs and enrollment management at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Jim Gaines, 48, an employee of the Associated Press who lived in Plainsboro, N.J.; Abid Gilani, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo; and Rachel Jacobs, CEO of a Philadelphia tech firm who lived in Manhattan.

Bostian’s LinkedIn profile says he has worked at Amtrak for almost nine years, and previously worked as a passenger conductor before he became a passenger engineer.

Since the crash, Bostian has not spoken publicly but he did change his Facebook profile photo to a completely black picture.

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