Disney World Monorail Crash Kills Driver

By Drew Nelles, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 5, 2009 4:14 PM CDT

(Newser) – Two Disney World monorail trains collided early this morning in Orlando, Fla., leaving one train operator dead, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Twenty-one-year-old Austin Wuennenberg died at the scene of the crash and another employee was taken to hospital with minor injuries. "I heard it happened at 2 a.m.," one park guest said. "Just must have been due to tiredness."

A former monorail driver says the trains are equipped with a safety system that automatically brakes when vehicles come too close together. This is the first fatal crash on Disney World’s monorail system; California’s Disneyland has seen one death on its train system. "Our heart goes out to the cast member and the family," a Disney World spokesman says. The park is open today with the monorail turned off.

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Disney employees and a sign direct visitors away from the monorail station to a bus loading area at at Walt Disney World. The park's monorail transit system was shut down following a deadly crash. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A monorail that was parked and idle rests on the track outside the EPCOT theme park at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., Sunday, July 5, 2009. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A monorail crash today at Disney World in Orlando, Fla., left one train conductor dead. (YouTube)

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Video from the scene of the crash. (YouTube)

The AP's report on the crash. (YouTube)

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