PHILADELPHIA — The driver of a gasoline tanker truck lost control on a curved exit ramp on Interstate 95, causing the truck to overturn and catch fire, causing the northbound lanes to collapse early in June, federal security officials said in a statement Thursday. Preliminary report.
The brief report from the National Transportation Safety Board outlined what happened on June 11, when an elevated section of Interstate 95 collapsed after the tanker caught fire below. It largely confirmed what state officials previously said.
The truck, which was a combination vehicle made up of a tractor truck and tanker trailer, was carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline from Wilmington, Delaware, to a gas station located on Oxford Avenue in Philadelphia, according to the report. It was operated through an affiliated airline leased from Penn Tank Lines.
The driver, who was killed in the crash, left the northbound lanes of I-95 at Cottman Avenue on a curved exit ramp that had a 25 mph speed limit and truck rollover warning signs, the authorities said. authorities in the report. The driver was unable to maintain control of the vehicle, which overturned and caught fire.
The fire caused the northbound lanes to collapse at the Cottman Avenue off-ramp and damaged the southbound lanes.
The National Transportation Safety Board was on the scene the night of the accident, gathering information about the truck and speaking with the company and emergency services to understand the sequence of events. Continue to investigate the accident and collapse.
A temporary six-lane highway was built in less than two weeks, with crews working around the clock to get traffic flowing again on what is a busy section of the main East Coast highway. The damaged I-95 segment carries about 160,000 vehicles daily, state officials said.
Workers used about 2,000 tons of lightweight glass nuggets to fill the underpass to surface level, then paved it over to create three lanes of travel in each direction. The temporary section has no shoulders and has slightly narrower lanes, and has a speed of 45 mph.