NTTC Asks for 1997 Crash Investigation to be Reopened

The president of the National Tank Truck Carriers has asked the National Transportation Safety Board to withdraw and reopen its investigation into a fatal 1997 tank truck accident that he said has become the “poster child” of the agency’s longtime campaign to require purge retrofits for cargo tank wetlines.

“While the Yonkers accident has become the poster wetlines event, it most likely was not a wetlines accident,” said a Dec. 1 letter written by John Conley, NTTC president, to NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman.

“The continued use of this flawed report as the ‘poster child’ incident for advocating removal of product from loading lines on gasoline trailers does a disservice to the gasoline transportation industry and to those charged with regulating the industry,” it continued.

The crash occurred shortly after midnight on Oct. 9, 1997, in Yonkers, N.Y., when a passenger sedan hit the right side of a cargo tank in the area of the tank’s external loading/unloading lines. Both vehicles were engulfed in a massive fire that killed the driver of the sedan, but did not injure the truck driver.

The driver was blamed for the accident because he failed to stop at a red light or reduce his speed.

As a part of its investigation, the NTSB in 1998 issued a recommendation that all gasoline tankers be required to install purging equipment to clear the wetlines of product. The agency has been lobbying Congress and the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for the requirement ever since.