PHILADELPHIA >> The Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven people, was hurtling at more than 100 mph before it ran off the rails along a sharp curve where the speed limit is just 50 mph, federal investigators said Wednesday.

The engineer who was at the controls refused to give a statement to authorities and left a police precinct with a lawyer, police said.

More than 200 people aboard the Washington-to-New York train were injured in the derailment that plunged screaming passengers into darkness and chaos Tuesday night. It was the nation’s deadliest train accident in nearly seven years.

“We are heartbroken by what has happened here,” Mayor Michael Nutter said.

Amtrak suspended all service until further notice along the Philadelphia-to-New York stretch of the nation’s busiest rail corridor — forcing thousands of travelers to find some other way to reach their destination — as investigators examined the wreckage and the tracks and gathered up other evidence.

The dead included an AP employee and a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy. Hospitals treated hundreds of victims for injuries that included burns and broken bones. At least 10 remained hospitalized in critical condition.

Nutter said some people remained unaccounted for, though he cautioned that some passengers listed on the Amtrak manifest might not have boarded the train, while others might not have checked in with authorities.

“We will not cease our efforts until we go through every vehicle,” the mayor said in the afternoon. He said rescuers expanded the search area and used dogs to look for victims in case someone was thrown from the wreckage.

Hours after recovering the locomotive’s data recorder, the National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that the train “exceeded 100 mph” before jumping the tracks in a decayed industrial neighborhood not far from the Delaware River shortly after 9 p.m.

The finding appeared to corroborate an Associated Press analysis of surveillance video from a spot along the tracks. The AP concluded from the footage that the train was speeding at approximately 107 mph moments before it entered the curve.

The speed limit is 70 mph just before the bend, the Federal Railroad Administration said.

Despite pressure from Congress and safety regulators, Amtrak had not installed along that section of track Positive Train Control, a technology that uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to prevent trains from going over the speed limit, the railroad agency said.

The engineer’s name was not immediately released.

The notoriously tight curve is not far from the site of the site of one of the deadliest train wrecks in U.S. history: the 1943 derailment of the Congressional Limited, bound from Washington to New York. Seventy-nine people were killed.

Amtrak inspected the stretch of track on Tuesday, just hours before the accident, and found no defects, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. In addition to the data recorder, the train had a video camera in its front end that could yield clues to what happened, said NTSB member Robert Sumwalt.

Passengers scrambled through the windows of torn and toppled cars to escape. One of the seven cars was severely mangled.

Jillian Jorgensen, 27, was seated in the second passenger car and said the train was going “fast enough for me to be worried” when it began to lurch to the right. Then the lights went out and Jorgensen was thrown from her seat.

She said she “flew across the train” and landed under some seats that had apparently broken loose from the floor.

Jorgensen, a reporter for The New York Observer who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, said she wriggled free as fellow passengers screamed. She saw one man lying still, his face covered in blood, and a woman with a broken leg.

She climbed out an emergency exit window, and a firefighter helped her down a ladder to safety.

“It was terrifying and awful, and as it was happening it just did not feel like the kind of thing you could walk away from, so I feel very lucky,” Jorgensen said in an email to the AP. “The scene in the car I was in was total disarray, and people were clearly in a great deal of pain.”

Award-winning AP video software architect Jim Gaines, a 48-year-old father of two, was among the dead. Also killed was Justin Zemser, a 20-year-old Naval Academy midshipman from New York City.

Several people, including one man complaining of neck pain, were rolled away on stretchers. Others wobbled as they walked away or were put on buses.

“It’s incredible that so many people walked away from that scene last night. I saw people on this street behind us walking off of that train. I don’t know how that happened, but for the grace of God,” Nutter said.

The area where the wreck happened is known as Frankford Junction, situated in a neighborhood of warehouses, industrial buildings and homes.

Amtrak carries 11.6 million passengers a year along its busy Northeast Corridor, which runs between Washington and Boston.

Associated Press reporters Maryclaire Dale, Michael R. Sisak and Josh Cornfield in Philadelphia and Jack Gillum, Ted Bridis and Joan Lowy in Washington contributed to this story.

A school bus with five students on board was involved in a crash Tuesday morning in Chino Hills, according to the California Highway Patrol incident log.

No injuries were reported in the crash just after 7 a.m. on Chino Avenue near Peyton Drive, according to reports.

The bus and a Kia Rio were involved in the crash.

Details about what led up to the crash were not immediately available.

LAGUNA BEACH — An 86-year-old Laguna Woods resident has died from injuries he suffered in Laguna Beach in a two-vehicle crash that also killed a 31-year-old woman and injured her two children, police said today.

The man, who was hospitalized in grave condition, was pronounced dead at 5:42 p.m. Sunday, said Laguna Beach police Sgt. George Ramos.

The Mother’s Day crash at El Toro and Laguna Canyon roads occurred about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Laguna Beach police Capt. Jason Kravetz said.

The woman, identified by the coroner’s office as Sandra Maldonado of Mission Viejo, was riding in a vehicle with her children, aged 5 and 8, and going northbound on El Toro Road when it appears her vehicle and a Honda Pilot traveling in the opposite direction sideswiped one another, he said.

Maldonado was rushed to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Orange, where she died from her injuries. Her children were taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, but they did not appear to be seriously hurt, Kravetz said.

“Alcohol doesn’t appear to be a factor. We’re still trying to determine which of the two vehicles veered out of their own traffic lanes,” the police captain said this morning.

The woman’s car spun around, and the Honda rolled off the road into some bushes, where it came to rest on its wheels, Kravetz said.

The wife of the Honda driver, who was the other occupant in the SUV, was not injured, he said.

POMONA >> An allegedly drunken man driving a stolen vehicle was caught with help from bystanders after he reportedly tried to leave the scene of a crash that killed a woman in Pomona late Thursday night.

The woman has been identified as 32-year-old Marissa Leigh Vasquez of Pomona, according to a Pomona police release.

Around 10:45 p.m., Claremont police notified the Pomona Police ’s Dispatch Center that they were at the scene of a two-vehicle accident on Arrow Highway and Mariposa Street in Pomona where one of the people involved had been killed. The crash took place shortly after Claremont police discontinued a short pursuit with one of the vehicles for a Vehicle Code violation.

Pomona officers learned that the driver of the second vehicle ran off, but was quickly caught when several witnesses told officers which direction he fled, officials said.

Police believe the unidentified man was under the influence of alcohol. They also learned the vehicle he was driving was allegedly an unreported stolen vehicle.

He was taken to a Los Angeles hospital for minor injuries sustained in the collision and arrested for on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and grand theft auto.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the Traffic Division at 909-620-2081 or Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or We-Tip 800-782-7463.

One person was killed in a crash in Pomona late Thursday night, Pomona Police officials said.

The crash between an SUV and a sedan was reported around 10:45 p.m. in the 200 block of W. Arrow Highway.

One of the vehicles struck a power pole in the area but it’s unclear if it caused an outage or if the incident was weather-related.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Murder charges were field Wednesday against the driver in a December crash that left a Hacienda Heights woman dead and her two sons seriously injured.

Aron Harutun Petrosian’s arraignment was continued to May 20, Los Angeles County District Attorney spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said. The Hacienda Heights resident, now 18, was arrested by California Highway Patrol officials on April 30, CHP Officer Edgar Figueroa said.

Petrosian, who was 17 at the time of the crash, was speeding in a 2012 Chevrolet Camaro SS on Halliburton Road in Hacienda Heights when he hit a 2007 BMW 328i at the intersection of Durazno Drive on Dec. 17, Figueroa wrote in a statement.

The crash killed 42-year-old Bertha Rosales and seriously injured her sons, Isaac, 13, and Ramon Jr., 10.

Five teens were hurt, two seriously when they were ejected in a rollover crash in Adelanto early Monday morning following a short pursuit.

The five were driving erratically in an allegedly stolen vehicle, San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials said.

A deputy first spotted the white Ford F-150 driving recklessly near Seneca Road and Aster Street, around 5:30 a.m., according to a release.

He tried to stop the truck, but the truck drove off.

The driver lost control near Aster Road and Mojave Drive causing the truck to roll, ejecting two people from the vehicle, officials said.

Two rescue helicopters landed at the Adelanto High School football field and flew two of the boys to Antelope Valley Hospital. Both are listed in critical condition.

A third teen was taken to Victor Valley Community Hospital and is listed in stable condition. The last two were treated at the scene by paramedics and released to their guardians, sheriff’s officials said.

Investigators learned the truck had been reportedly stolen in Adelanto.

BAKER >> A 44-year-old woman died after her car was rear-ended on the 15 Freeway near here, the San Bernardino County coroner’s website reported Sunday.

The victim was identified as Kimberly Towns, 44, of Carson.

Emergency personnel were called to the scene around 6:30 a.m. Saturday, the website said.

Personnel arrived and found a crash on the northbound lanes of the 15, south of Mile Marker 146 near Baker, the website said. A CHP official said Towns was rear-ended while driving south and spun out, her car coming to rest in the northbound lanes.

San Bernardino County Fire Department personnel found the woman dead at the scene.

An unidentified victim was transported by fire personnel to Barstow Community Hospital, said county Fire Department spokeswoman Tracey Martinez.

Towns was driving a 2011 Infinity G25 south on the 15 when a 2006 Mercedes-Benz 320 hit the back of her car, according to the website.

The California Highway Patrol is investigating the case.

Staff Writer Greg Cappis contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES >> The stepchildren of a woman killed in an automobile crash involving Bruce Jenner have sued the Olympic gold medalist.

The wrongful death case was filed Friday in Los Angeles by the stepchildren of Kim Howe, whose car was pushed into oncoming traffic after Jenner’s sport utility vehicle collided with it on Pacific Coast Highway in February.

The lawsuit by Dana Redmond and William Howe does not specify how much they are seeking, but states they have sustained enormous damages.

Jenner’s publicist Alan Nierob declined comment.

Jenner has not been charged in the case. An investigation is ongoing.

Jenner said in a TV interview that he identifies as a woman and has felt gender confusion since he was a boy.