Federal investigators have released the names of those killed and injured in Sunday morning’s deadly train crash in Hoxie. The Sun Newspaper reports engineer Chance Gober of White Hall and conductor Roderick Hayes of McKinney, Texas was killed after their southbound train collided head-on with a northbound train. Those injured on the northbound train were engineer Michael Zompakos of Maumelle and conductor Aaron Jeffrey. Officials report Zompakos and Jeffrey have serious injuries, but those injuries are not said to be life-threatening. Officials have also released more information about the accident. The southbound train that Gober and Hayes were traveling on was traveling from East St. Louis to North Little Rock. The northbound train was heading from Little Rock to St. Louis at the time of the collision. The National Transportation Safety Board has been combing through the wreckage to try to find out why the accident happened. Investigators are talking with witnesses at the scene and have recovered the recorders from both trains for further analysis. A report from The Associated Press says equipment malfunction or human errors are two possibilities. More specifically, KAIT television is now reporting one of the trains was given signals to slow down and then stop, but that train did not do so. The NTSB is continuing its investigation into the accident, and is expected to remain in Hoxie the rest of this week. Officials are still recommending residents heading through the area take Highway 91 as a detour, while the investigation and cleanup continues.
Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.