A 17-year-old in Nebraska has been charged with two felony counts of criminal mischief after allegedly causing a train crash and filming it.
The teenager appeared in Lancaster County Juvenile Court on Wednesday but may be transferred to an adult court after prosecutors filed a motion.
The incident happened in the small city of Bennet on April 21 when a locomotive crashed into an empty coal car after it had gotten onto the wrong line because of a misaligned switch. Nobody was hurt but the collision cost $350,000 in damage.
The conductor of the BNSF Railway train — which was carrying coal and traveling east — tried to make an emergency stop but ran out of time before the collision.
An investigator for the BNSF Railway police, Thomas McCaslin, says in the affidavit that two locomotives and five rail cars derailed but remained upright.
Footage of the accident was posted to a YouTube channel which prosecutors believe is associated with the teenager. The title of the video reads: “Loaded BNSF Arbor COLLIDES and DERAILS in Bennet, NE! MOST INSANE VIDEO I’VE EVER TAKEN!”
“The aftermath of the collision raises the questions of how such a routine journey can turn perilous and what lessons can be gleaned from such a brush with disaster,” the narrator says.
The accused is said to be a train enthusiast, or “railfan”, and reported the incident to authorities, according to court documents. When investigators arrived on the scene, the teenager asked what had caused the crash. After he was told it was undetermined, he replied that “obviously a switch was flipped the wrong way.”
He then showed the video he filmed to the train investigators and told them he was a train enthusiast, which was recorded by the investigator’s body cam.
The investigator says that the teenager knew where the switches were and how they worked. The authorities later discovered that a tripod had been set up next to the accident site just four minutes before the crash.
“In the days following the derailment, a video of the derailment was posted to YouTube account ZUnit06, which is believed to be associated with [the teen],” an investigator says in the document. “This account features numerous videos of trains filmed in Bennet, NE, and other locations in Lancaster County, NE.”
