Three Army trucks slid off the Richardson Highway Thursday on a hill north of Shaw Creek, about 30 miles north of Delta Junction. Only minor injuries were reported, but a tanker in the convoy rolled into the ditch and leaked about 25 gallons of fuel.
The tanker hit the ditch at around 1:30 p.m. Thursday as it was headed northbound up Tenderfoot Hill on a return trip to Fort Wainwright after a training exercise. An Army spokesperson says the tanker driver lost control of the rig after he hit the brakes to avoid hitting a civilian vehicle that had passed him just before the two lanes merged at the top of the hill.
That’s what tow-truck driver Casey Edwards guessed when he came upon the wreck scene on his way to another accident.
“They just topped the hill, and what I think happened is they just mashed the brakes and wouldn’t get off the brakes,” Edwards said in an interview Thursday.
JBER-based 11th Airborne Division spokesperson John Pennell said the tanker driver was traveling slowly up the hill when he hit the brakes, just as he was passing over a patch of black ice.
Edwards said he pulled up to the site at around 2:30 and saw an Alaska State Trooper directing traffic and three Army trucks off both sides of the highway. Two of them were tankers, and one of those was upside-down.
“I stopped at the top of Tenderfoot because there was a Trooper there, and he told me that that tank had opened up and it was leaking,” Edwards said.
Pennell said the lid of one of the truck’s side tanks popped-off as the rig rolled into the ditch. He said a soldier quickly replaced the cap and stopped the leak.
State Department of Environmental Conservation Program Specialist Laurie Silfven says about 25 gallons of fuel was released. But she says Army officials told the agency that none of the 1,700 gallons of aviation fuel in the big tank leaked out.
“The 1,750-gallon main compartment tank was intact,” she said Friday.
Silfven says Army officials advised the agency that the spilled fuel and contaminated absorbent material and snow was cleaned up and brought back to Fort Wainwright, along with the wrecked tanker, at about 3 a.m. Friday.
Pennell said EMS responders treated the tanker’s driver and passenger for some bumps and scrapes they sustained, but he said they were otherwise OK.
Editor's note: This story has been revised to correct the distance from Delta Junction to the wreck site on Tenderfoot Hill. It's about 30 miles from Delta.
