Oil tanker flips, explodes, killing driver on LIE
A fuel tanker clipped a sedan, flipped and ignited on the eastbound side of the LIE near Exit 48 on Jan. 23, 2010. Credit: Paul Mazza
It was a typical payload on the Island's central artery of human motion and commerce: 12,000 gallons of volatile fuel meant for some of the 180,000 or so vehicles that roll down the Long Island Expressway every day.
The delivery of unleaded fuel from a Brooklyn depot to Suffolk gas stations ended in a deadly explosion just before 8 a.m. Saturday near Exit 48 at Round Swamp Road in Melville, when the eastbound truck tried to swerve around a slow-moving compact car with mechanical trouble in the center lane. The tanker struck the car before flipping and catching fire, killing the driver.
The driver of the Dodge Neon, Marie Medina, 29, of Bayonne, N.J., said she saw the truck coming in her rearview mirror but didn't have time to react. She was not injured. Her car was badly damaged.
The truck driver, Mujahid Shah, 57, a Brooklyn man whose boss called him a loyal employee and safe driver, did not escape the fireball.
State Police will reconstruct the accident scene, which is expected to take weeks or months. No determination has been made yet on the speed of the vehicles or the exact cause of the crash.
With Mark Harrington
and Alfonso A. Castillo
'I had to keep my mouth shut' Ronnie Tanner, a horse jockey in the '60s and '70s, and Kendrick Carmouche, a current jockey, spoke about the racism Black jockeys have faced. NewsdayTV's Jamie Stuart reports.
'I had to keep my mouth shut' Ronnie Tanner, a horse jockey in the '60s and '70s, and Kendrick Carmouche, a current jockey, spoke about the racism Black jockeys have faced. NewsdayTV's Jamie Stuart reports.
