NEW YORK — The grief-stricken mother of the train operator killed in the AirTrain crash at Kennedy Airport said yesterday her son’s employer has not offered condolences to the family, the New York Daily News reported.
Kelvin DeBourgh, 23, of Springfield Gardens, Queens, died after the three-car train he was test-driving for Bombardier Transportation derailed and crashed into a retaining wall on the elevated track.
“No one has come to tell us what happened. No big shots, no officials, no one,” said a misty-eyed Bernadine DeBourgh as she looked at a picture of her son. “They treat my son like a piece of trash.”
But Carole Sharpe, a Bombardier spokeswoman, insisted company officials have been in touch with the family and that the Bombardier president had spoken to DeBourgh.
Meanwhile, Bob Campbell, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, arrived at the crash site.
“He’ll begin his work by meeting with authorities and other officials who had already been working on this accident and he’ll begin collecting information on the nature of the test,” said NTSB spokeswoman Lauren Peduzzi.
The crash occurred just west of Federal Circle near the Van Wyck Expressway.
Deadly simulation Investigators said the train was loaded with cement blocks to simulate passenger load when it rounded a bend, veered off track and shaved off 150 feet of the cement barrier.
Some of the 16,000 pounds of cement ballast crushed DeBourgh who died hours later at Jamaica Hospital.
Sharpe said she could not release details about the test because of the investigation. “We do have a full team cooperating with the Port Authority in finding out the cause,” she said.
The $1.9 billion transit project, which connects the airport with subway stations in Howard Beach and Jamaica, was scheduled to begin service in December.
Trains were scheduled to run first between the airport’s nine terminals and its Howard Beach station, then to its Jamaica station in mid-2003.
The Canadian company, which designed and built the AirTrain, will also operate it when service begins.
A wake for DeBourgh is planned for Wednesday at J. Foster Phillips Funeral Home in St. Albans, Queens. He will be buried Thursday.