Police unable to locate drivers who escaped deadly tunnel fire

Orange County Register ^ | 10/18/07 | A.P.

[Sefton]

SANTA CLARITA – Authorities scrambled to locate nine drivers believed to have escaped a deadly freeway inferno as officials reopened the West Coast's main interstate Monday and offered a first look inside the blackened tunnel.

Thirty-one vehicles were involved in the pileup in the curving, darkened tunnel on Interstate 5, but the California Highway Patrol has accounted for only 23 people, including two men and a 6-year-old boy who died in the fire.

If all of them were at the wheel at the time of the crash, excluding the boy, that leaves nine unaccounted for drivers. The number could be higher if there were passengers.

[Sefton]

31 vehicles, only 22 (licensed?) drivers located. Has anyone heard if any NAFTA's Mexican trucks were involved? Think the press will investigate?

[endthematrix]

Try the Home Depot parking lot...

Victims, RIP.

[CindyDawg]

They should be able to determine the owners by the plates, fairly easily, I would think.

[sageb1]

Or driving without a CDL.

[Clink]

Contrary to what Rosie says, fire can melt steel:)

[mewzilla]

Only one passenger vehicle involved? The rest were big rigs? Some may belong to trucking companies, some independantly owned. And the cops can’t locate the drivers? This is going to be interesting.

[PAR35]

Police unable to locate drivers who escaped deadly tunnel fire

I'd suggest looking in Mexico.

[fabian]

how did 30 commercial trucks collide? They are supposed to keep a good distance in case of a sudden stop being needed. People drive like maniacs...I drive for a living and if I do the speed limit or a little above I can have people honking and cutting me off. And that’s not in the fast lane.

[CindyDawg]

True, but did the trucks melt? There is probably some identifying number, either plates or serial.

[TaMoDee]

Or have warrants on them.

[CindyDawg]

Were any of them rentals?

[mewzilla]

Or driving without a CDL.

This guy had a CDL....

Lawmaker: Why Did Driver Have Commercial License?

Makes me wonder how hard they are to get.

[LexBaird]

how did 30 commercial trucks collide?

A combo of rain, darkness, speed, and a blind corner into a tunnel.

[stevie_d_64]

Interesting they slip up and mentioned “licensed” drivers...

But the commercial drivers need to be “licensed” drivers rated above the class “C” for normal DL’s...

I’ve seen trend (in recent years) of some companies not hiring properly credentialed and licensed drivers...For whatever reasons, economic or expediency reasons...

I believe its only a matter of time before things like this happen in varying degrees of severity...

This is not the first time something like this has happened...

[Floyd Rivers]

Sadly, it does seem possible that located someplace inside that tunnel is a smallish grouping of of greatly reduced ashes. just a notion...

[LexBaird]

True, but did the trucks melt?

"As the highway reopened early Monday, investigators worked to identify vehicles, some of which were reduced to molten steel in the fire's intense heat. They were also trying to locate drivers, passengers and any witnesses to the accident."

Essentially, the tunnel acted like a blast furnace. It is in a mountain pass, with a wind passing through the tunnel like a chimney.

[AuntB]

It seems strange that 9 truck drivers can’t be located. I have a feeling some of this is shady brokers. On our local news a couple days ago they interviewed a girl about 11 years old whose father was missing in the tunnel. Her mother was there, but only the girl spoke. Perhaps because the mother was not an English speaker. The girl said her father drove for “Dart international trucking”.

[ElkGroveDan]

They’ll identify the vehicles eventually if they have to go to serial numbers on the axels or engine blocks.

Now who was driving and why they wouldn’t want to talk to authorities is a different question.

[mewzilla]

From what I read, the fire burned so hot, that the firefighters and rescue folks couldn’t get in there for hours. That said, if there are remains in there, you’d think family and/or friends would have filed a missing persons report on anyone who hasn’t been in touch. Surely the cops have run cross checks.

[Floyd Rivers]

...”you’d think family and/or friends would have filed a missing persons report...”

I agree. I guess the VIN#s and all will eventually tell the story. Perhaps, as some others have pointed out, there are other reasons survivors would not wish to come forward.

[Floyd Rivers]

But NINE vehicles occupied/driven by illegals all in the tunnel at the same time? That’s some odds. Even in CA.

[BohDaThone]

I see no indication that 30 vehicles were big rigs or even commercial. Just says “31 vehicles” — of all types.
As to the role of illegals. Give it a rest — they WILL find out where the vehicles are from — by engine blocks, etc if need be. And then we will see. If over 2 are commercial from Mexico, I will be astonsihed, and will say so. If it turns out that none are, will any of the other posters note that fact??

[BohDaThone]

No indication that “the nine” missing are truck drivers, as I just noted. The whole story is a bit weird. With 31 vehicles, the chances are that at least a few had multiple passengers, so we are probably looking at 40 or so people. They have identifed 23, apparently, but only 2 bodies. Unless almost everyone was very fast or very lucky, I think we are looking at a fair number of bodies in very damaged condition that will be identified eventually.

[BurbankKarl]

18 hours I believe.

>> that the firefighters and rescue folks couldn’t get in there for hours

[BurbankKarl]

When they say accident, they are talking the mile long incident, not those vehicles trapped in the tunnel.

[BurbankKarl]

Trapped in a tunnel behind a truck engulfed in flames, Ricardo Cibrian sounded eerily calm as he phoned his best friend moments before his big rig exploded.

Cibrian had been heading home to his wife and two children in Koreatown when he called his friend from the curved, rain-slick road about 10:40 p.m.

Behind the wheel of his tractor-trailer, while watching the chaos inside the Interstate 5 truck tunnel unfold, he told his friend he was confident he'd get out. Then, he sat helpless as other semis slammed into the back of his truck.

"His friend said to break the glass window and get out. He couldn't. Then (his friend) heard the explosion," said Espree Campos, a close family friend who lives in Cibrian's apartment complex and baby-sits his children.

While unconfirmed, Cibrian is presumed to be one of three people who died in the 31-vehicle crash Friday night that left 10 injured. And nine people who apparently escaped had yet to call the California Highway Patrol on Monday to say they were OK. "It is really sad that he's gone and that he's not going to be here," Campos said. "But we have him in our hearts."

http://www.dailynews.com/ci_7188615

[Anonymous Rex]

I have little doubt that the drivers they were looking for crossed back into mexico shortly after leaving the scene.

[Tarpon]

Have they looked in Mexico?

[Clink]

Some of the reports I’ve heard stated that “some of the vehicles were reduced to piles of molten metal”.

[CindyDawg]

Yikes. The missing may have burned:’(

[fabian]

umm, yes they did say that 30 of the vehicles were trucks. And I never said anything about mexican drivers. I was commenting on the lack of safe driving practices of so many drivers...obviously this would not have happened if all the drivers were traveling at slower speeds and wider distances from each other. As I had said before, many people drive like maniacs.

[BohDaThone]

EMILY LITELLA NOTE FROM YESTERDAY'S LA TIMES:

CHP officials, meanwhile, sought to clarify the status of a number of truck drivers involved in the wreck whom officials had earlier suggested were missing. Garrett, the CHP spokesman, said investigators have contacted "most, if not all" of the drivers. But they have yet to match some of the drivers to trucks that were badly burned in the crash. "Some of these vehicles were melted down to the ground, so it takes time," Garrett said. "But it's not as if these people have vanished into thin air. That was a miscommunication."

[Publius6961]

BUMP!