Debunked: Amtrak crash investigators rule out bullet theory

Investigators say they are certain a bullet did not hit the windshield of Train 188 last week — and they’re not entirely sure that anything at all hit the train before it derailed. FBI agents performed forensic work on a grapefruit-sized fracture on the left side of the Amtrak locomotive’s windshield, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it found no evidence of any damage that could have been caused by a gun.

You know when a pebble hits a windshield and it goes through a layer and the window fractures and it kind of looks like a spider web? That’s sort of what [the broken windshield] looks like.

Law enforcement official briefed on the investigation

Investigators have also reviewed audiotapes and found that engineer Brendan Bostian never told a dispatch center that an object had struck his train. The bullet theory came from a report that an assistant conductor said she heard the regional train engineer say he’d been “hit by a rock or shot at” and she thought she heard the Amtrak engineer say his train had also been struck.

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