UPDATE: 2 men killed in Vaughan Hwy. 407 crash involving tanker truck

1 other vehicle involved in crash as tanker crossed into oncoming traffic

Yorkregion.com
November 1, 2018
Premila D’Sa

A fuel tanker crashed through a concrete barrier on Highway 407 flipping over and careening into oncoming traffic, killing two and filling the sky with fire and a plume of smoke on Halloween night.

Ontario Provincial Police said they responded to a collision involving two vehicles on Highway 407 between Dufferin and Keele streets.

Westbound lanes on the highway have reopened, but eastbound lanes and ramps from Hwy. 400 to Hwy. 407 remained closed early Nov. 1.

The two victims were the driver of the tanker and the motorist in the other vehicle involved in the collision, OPP spokesperson Kerry Schmidt, said in a video posted to Twitter.

The truck driver was a 41-year-old man from Brampton who collided into a 49-year old male driver from Mississauga, he said.

Schmidt described the truck as crossing over from the westbound lane to the eastbound side, crashing into an oncoming vehicle in the eastbound lanes. The collision caused a fire and “significant” damage to the highway, OPP said.

“The collision is massive, the fire is still burning,” Schmidt said on social media around 6 p.m.

OPP Staff Sgt. Carolle Dionne said accidents involving any type of vehicle carrying fuel can be dangerous: “There is always the risk of fire with a fuel tanker or any vehicle carrying dangerous goods.”

Paramedics said they did not take any other patients to hospital.

Spokesperson Gary Fineberg said two people were pronounced dead at the scene.

Robert Kostiuk said he was driving down the route, which he takes every day, when he saw the truck go from being straight on the right lane, to suddenly turning perpendicular and flipping over the concrete barrier on the highway.

“There was no in-between, there was no kind of swerving over,” he said. “It was a 90 degree turn but still at full speed it looked like.”

He said the explosion after the truck flipped over was immediate.

“Instead of even just smouldering, it exploded,” said Kostiuk. “It wasn’t a fire, it was an explosion.”

Kostiuk said he pulled over to call 911, who told him they had already received several calls about the accident, and then he drove away, as the fire grew bigger.

“When I was passing by you could feel the heat inside of your vehicle, that’s how intense the fire was — it was a fireball.”

Vaughan Deputy Fire Chief Andrew Zvanitajs said around 6:30 p.m. the fire was under control, with 30 firefighters on scene responding to the 3-alarm fire.

Zvanitajs said fire services haven’t yet determined exactly what fuel the tanker was carrying other than it’s a hydrocarbon. The emissions caused by the fire don’t warrant an evacuation, he said, but added that tests were going to be conducted.

Schmidt said around 9:30 p.m. on social media that he expects the westbound lane to reopen in several hours and the eastbound lane to be open before the morning rush hour, but with some lane restrictions.

“This will be a significant investigation and closure.”

In the first half of 2018, the OPP responded to 33 fatal collisions involving transport trucks, a 38 per cent increase over last year. A total of 41 people died in those collisions.