The worst train accident in the past 15 years was most likely caused by negligence which involved text messaging. The driver of the train which skipped a red light and hit a freight train head-on, received two text messages seconds before the terrible accident, federal investigators said.

The deadly crash occurred on September 12 in Chatsworth, California. The crash which involved the collision between the Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight locomotive killed 25 people and injured about 135.

The train driver, 46-year-old Robert Martin Sanchez, was killed in the tragic incident and since then, the National Transportation Safety Board has been trying to establish whether the driver failed to notice trackside signals.

The record of Sanchez’s cell phone shows that he received a text message at 4:22:01 p.m., and received one at 4:21:03 p.m. At 4:22:23 p.m. the disaster took place. These were the last messages he read, but Sanchez received 7 and sent 5 text messages between 3:00 p.m. and the time of the crash. The cell phone’s records also showed that Sanchez sent 24 text messages and received 21 over a two-hour period during his morning shift.

Federal investigators are still working to establish an exact correlation between Sanchez’s intense text messaging and the train crash.  

The terrible accident prompted the California authorities to ban the use of cell phones to railroad workers while they were on duty. A commuter train engineer has been suspended for using his cell phone while on duty. This reportedly happened shortly after the deadly crash, The Washington Post reported.