Its the question everybody is asking on Tuesday morning, hours after one Metro train slammed into another on the Red Line at the height of rush hour Monday.
The death toll was scaled back from nine to seven Tuesday morning but will probably climb again with more than seventy people injured; but this was an accident that everyone had been told could not happen on Metro.
Train #112 and train #214 were both traveling between the Takoma Park and Fort Totten stations. The first car (112) was stopped or stalling because a third train had not y
et cleared the above ground Fort Totten platform.
Train 214 was operated by 42 year old Jeanice McMillen of Springfield, Va. If her train was on automatic, the computer system at Metro Central should have kept her train at a safe distance.
Other operators say she should have been able to apply the brakes manually is needed.
So what went wrong?
McMillen was killed when her train slammed into the train into the rear end of the train in front of her on a crystal clear day.
Those of us who went to the scene to report the carnage witnessed one train that had been ripped open where the operator once sat...the rest of the car-crunched like a stepped on soda can-had mounted the first train.
Keith Dean of Northeast DC was one of the area residents who arrived on the scene, snapping numerous digital pictures which he made available exclusively for this blog.
His camera captured metro passengers from both trains sprawled out on the ground, having been rescued by other riders, firefighters or finding their own way out of the wreckage.
Rescue workers had to cut their way into the wreckage of both trains still on the tracks and pointing toward downtown DC. Mayor Adrian Fenty, Metro GM John Catoe and others held a press conference-giving much needed updates.
The rest of the rush hour commute was thrown into a tailspin.
The Red line stopped at Rhode island Avenue, south of the crash, and at Silver Spring to the North. Marc trains carrying commuters away from the city were delayed.
Tuesday morning begged for patience at every level. It wasn't clear at first glance just how many people had kept to plans of fidning other ways, other than metro train, of getting to work or school.
Following a Tuesday morning press conference Mayor Fenty said authorities had begun notifying families of the dead.
The NTSB is heading the investigation and refused to speculate on a cause for the deadliest accident in Metro's 33 year history.
