National Transportation Safety Board officials said Saturday they are investigating two crashes involving Florida’s high-speed Brighline train that killed three people and injured three others earlier this week.

Both crashes happened at the same railroad crossing in Melbourne, a city on Florida’s Atlantic Coast about 70 miles southeast of Orlando.

The first incident occurred on Wednesday when a northbound Brightline train struck a Honda Element SUV around 2 p.m., killing the driver, 62-year-old Charles Julian Phillips, and injuring three passengers: 48-year-old Keisha Belingei Gonzalez, 44-year-old Terricha Culbreth and a 9-year-old child, according to the Melbourne Police Department.

The SUV appeared to have tried to outrun the train at the crossing, Melbourne Mayor Paul Alfrey told reporters at the scene.

Less than 48 hours later, another crash at the same crossing left two people dead. A southbound Brightline train struck a 2004 Chevrolet Avalanche pickup truck just before 1 p.m. on Friday killing the driver, 52-year-old Lisa Ann Batchelder, and the passenger, 54-year-old Michael Anthony Degasperi.

Security footage shows the moment the truck went around the crossing gate and onto the tracks and was hit by the train, local television station WESH reported.

The NTSB, an independent government investigative agency, said Saturday in a message shared on X that it’s sending a team to conduct a safety investigation at the scene, in collaboration with Melbourne police.

“Investigators will work to better understand the safety issues at this crossing and will examine opportunities to prevent or mitigate these crashes in the future,” NTSB spokeswoman Sarah Taylor Sulick said.

The privately owned Brightline, which began running its neon-yellow trains between Miami and West Palm Beach in 2018, debuted its Miami-to-Orlando high-speed route to great fanfare on Sept. 22, 2023.

Traveling between the two major tourist destinations on the Brightline takes about 3.5 hours — or 30 minutes less than the average drive — with the trains reaching speeds of up to 125 mph.

According to its website, the train is the “only provider of modern, eco-friendly, higher-speed rail service in America.”

With News Wire Services