GREEN RIVER, Wyo. — A series of chain-reaction crashes and a fire in a Wyoming highway tunnel that killed three people started when a pickup truck lost control and partially blocked traffic on the slick roadway, federal investigators said Wednesday.
It had snowed before the Feb. 14 crashes along Interstate 80, the primary east-west road corridor through Wyoming, near the small town of Green River, Wyoming. The highway was wet with possible ice or slush near the tunnel exit when a westbound Toyota pickup drove out of the tunnel and spun, hitting a guardrail before stopping, blocking the right lane and part of the left lane, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report.
Other vehicles headed out of the tunnel tried to avoid hitting the Toyota, including a tractor trailer that jackknifed and blocked both lanes of traffic about 200 feet before the tunnel’s exit, it said.
A Dodge pickup hit that tractor trailer, and another tractor trailer hit the Dodge pickup. That second tractor trailer, entangled with the Dodge truck, hit the jackknifed tractor trailer again before hitting the Toyota and another truck outside the tunnel, the NTSB said.
Several other vehicles then collided inside the tunnel, and there was a post-crash fire, the report said.
Two of the people in the Dodge pickup truck died as a result of the crashes, the NTSB said. The driver of a tractor trailer in the tunnel was trapped inside the vehicle and died in the fire, it said.
Twenty other people had injuries of varying degrees, the NTSB said.
The crash took place in the westbound tube of the twin tunnel under Castle Rock, a sandstone formation that looms over the town of Green River in the state’s southwest region.