Train was in automatic mode: probe

Twenty-four hours after the US capital’s deadliest subway crash, federal investigators said they believed the trains were operating in automatic mode but that the cause of the collision remained a mystery.

Twenty-four hours after the US capital’s deadliest subway crash, federal investigators said they believed the trains were operating in automatic mode but that the cause of the collision remained a mystery.

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The emergency brake had also been pressed in, indicating that the train’s 42-year-old female driver may have attempted to halt it before slamming into another train from behind on Monday.

The driver, who was among nine people killed in the crash, had only been operating Metro trains for three months, according to National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Debbie Hersman. The striking train was one of the oldest in the fleet, potentially in service on the day Washington’s Metro system opened to the public in 1976.