A trucker’s mistakes may have been the probable cause of a fiery crash in June 2023 that took the driver’s life and collapsed an I-95 overpass in Philadelphia.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report on the crash, released Thursday, 53-year-old Nathan Moody entered an an exit ramp from I-95 for Cottman Avenue “well above the posted advisory speed limit, due to inattention to the roadway potentially associated with fatigue.”
It also found that Moody had failed to secure the manhole cover of his gasoline tanker during a pre-trip inspection.
As a result, gasoline poured from the overturned truck, feeding a fire that eventually brought down the overpass for northbound I-95, it said. An inspection discovered that the interstate’s southbound lanes were structurally unsafe.
The fiery crash of a truck bringing gasoline to a Wawa caused the collapse of an I-95 overpass in Philadelphia in June 2023.
The crash severed the eight-lane highway, a major artery along Philadelphia’s Delaware River waterfront, and emergency repairs took months to complete.
Moody worked out of TK Transport, a Pennsauken, N.J., trucking terminal affiliated with Penn Tank Lines.
According to the report, Moody, of Philadelphia, was driving at an estimated speed of 44-54 mph, well above the exit ramp’s advisory speed limit of 25 mph.
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The truck was carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline in a tank trailer when it tipped onto its right side at approximately 6:15 a.m. June 11, 2023. It was delivering the gasoline from Wilmington to a Wawa in Philadelphia.
The report said burning gasoline flowed in storm drains toward the Delaware River approximately 800 feet away. That caused dozens of “fuel/air explosions” that ejected manhole covers along the gasoline’s path for several hours.
“First responders were instructed not to park near the manholes for safety reasons,” the report said.
The streams of burning gasoline at one point caused a secondary explosion of “like a discarded, maybe an old propane tank” near the crash scene, Cary Boyd, a captain with Philadelphia’s fire department, told an NTSB investigator.
“And that sucker popped and we all just like cringed up and then a couple seconds later it was like shrapnel hitting the top of our helmets and stuff,” Boyd said.
The report said Philadelphia 911 dispatchers received dozens of calls about the crash, with one person saying she saw “a huge truck flipped over onto its side and catch on fire.”
The fiery crash of a truck bringing gasoline to a Wawa caused the collapse of an I-95 overpass in Philadelphia in June 2023.
Philadelphia Fire Department personnel initially were unable to make out details of the crashed vehicle due to smoke and flames beneath the overpass.
“I had no idea what was on fire, but every square foot of that underpass was nothing but flame,” said Boyd. “We couldn’t see anything except the fire and then the smoke billowing out.”
Firefighters were kept away from the underpass, said Ted Quedenfeld, a battalion chief with the fire department.
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“We weren’t putting anybody under the bridge, just from the fist-size concrete that was falling veryquickly, you know, which then became automobile-size concrete, you know, before it fell,” he told an investigator.
A witness said she was about to follow the truck onto the exit “when she saw a bunch of dirt fly up and could tell the truck lost control or flipped or hit something.” The woman, who steered back onto I-95, said the truck “just erupted, like completely exploded, huge ball of fire.”
The investigation showed the value of fatigue management programs to reduce accidents, said the NTSB.
Among other strategies, it said, the Philadelphia crash “highlights the importance of drivers adopting sleep schedules that do not change substantially between their workdays and their days off.”
A surveillance photo shows a 16-inch ‘manhole cover’ that was left open on a gasoline tanker involved in a fiery crash in Philadelphia in June 2023.
It noted that Moody’s truck was not equipped with electronic stability control (ESC), which can apply breaking force to individual wheels to help a driver maintain control.
The investigation found an ESC system “could have helped to prevent the rollover in this crash at any of the speeds in the 44–54 mph range at which the truck was traveling. “
The report called on the U.S. Department of Transportation to promote ESC systems “to lighter commercial vehicles as well, where its capability of preventing a catastrophic outcome is even more assured.”
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: NTSB report: Trucker’s mistakes likely caused, worsened I-95 tragedy