The train car that slammed into the back of another on Washington’s Metro system, killing nine people, was an older model that U.S. safety investigators had called for replacing or overhauling 13 years ago.

The car “telescoped” in the accident during the evening rush hour yesterday, Debbie Hersman, a National Transportation Safety Board member, said today at a press conference. The front end of the car was sheared off.

The board, which is investigating the deadliest accident in the Washington system’s 33-year history, had advised Metro that cars of that type would crumple in a crash after a January 1996 collision between two trains that killed a train operator. The agency recommended that Metro improve its rail cars’ crashworthiness.

NTSB investigators on the scene of yesterday’s accident will review the train operators’ phone and texting records and examine the track and signals, said Hersman, who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as the safety board’s chairman.

“We don’t know at this point whether or not the operator could have seen the train ahead of them in time to stop,” she said. “We’re going to be conducting a thorough accident investigation.”

Washington’s Metro, run by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, is the second-largest U.S. heavy-rail transit system after New York City’s subway, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

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