2:00pm Pacific yesterday (1/9/22) at San Fernando & Osborne in Pacoima (just northwest of LA).
N8056L is a 1967 Cessna 172H, and was flying out of Whiteman Airport when it lost power on takeoff from runway 12. The plane landed on the Metrolink Antelope Valley line tracks, where it was subsequently struck by the train.
Runway 30 (the opposite end of 12) is just over the fence and to the right of the LAPD vehicle at the beginning of the clip.
Since LAPD was already on the scene, this calls into question why the train was going through that area, and at a high speed. Surely by the time the cops got there, someone would have thought to contact Metrolink and warn them of an obstruction on their tracks?
The pilot must have barely made the fence to crash there.
Metrolink might not have had enough time to respond. The officer might have not called it in immediately, and I imagine it takes a couple of minutes for metrolink to figure out what locomotives might be a factor, then the train has to slow down which can take a while.
WHP is a towered airport, so it would definitely have been open and thus a "controlled airport" at 2:00 in the afternoon. Even if the officers hadn't called it in, the tower would likely have an easy way to contact Metrolink, seeing as the rail line runs just outside the fence.
As for which ones might be a factor, they would know it's the Antelope Valley line simply because of the location of the tracks. And they know where each train is at all times. Since it was on a weekend, that line only has six trains going in either direction, and the trains are pretty evenly spaced throughout the day. So they would know exactly which train would be an issue, since there was probably only one in the area.
Commuter trains are also able to come to an emergency stop relatively quickly. For comparison, a fully loaded 10-car E956 "ALFA-X" (the newest train in the JR East inventory) is designed to come to a dead stop from 225mph in 13,000 feet (2.46 miles). Metrolink uses 4-car trains from Hyundai that top out at about 80mph, so they would be able to stop significantly faster. In fact, Metrolink trains are supposed to be able to stop in no more than a mile, a distance easily visible on a straight-line section of track. But an emergency stop wouldn't have been required if they had been informed.
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