2nd Guilty Plea in Amtrak Crash

The former Conrail engineer at the controls during the worst crash in Amtrak history pleaded guilty today to a federal charge of conspiring to obstruct an investigation of the wreck.

Rick Gates, 34, is already serving a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a state charge of manslaughter for running a string of locomotives past a signal and into the path of an Amtrak passenger train. Sixteen people were killed and 175 injured in the Jan. 4, 1987, crash near Chase, Md. Gates could receive up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing in the federal case July 15. He was accused of lying to federal investigators.