Letter foreshadowed Schoharie limo crash
Apple Barrel owner warned DOT in fall of 2012 prior to incident
In the fall of 2012, Bob Loden, the owner of the Apple Barrel Country Store & Cafe, wrote a desperate letter to a regional director of the state Department of Transportation.
Loden’s letter to John Williams reported that over the prior three months three trucks headed down a steep section of Route 30 toward the intersection with Route 30A — and the front of his popular tourist destination — and crashed into his parking lot. In each case, the vehicle’s brakes failed.
Two of the trucks came dangerously close to smashing into his 1,000-gallon propane tank, a frightening scenario
Loden didn’t want to contemplate. “If a brake failure were to occur on a busy fall weekend, multiple lives are at risk as well as property,” Loden wrote Williams.
Although the DOT would eventually ban all truck traffic on that steep section of Route 30 in 2015, Loden’s words are both chilling and prophetic. The 2012 letter foreshadowed what would happen six years later when, on Oct. 6, 2018, a 31-foot stretch Ford Excursion limousine, its brakes failing, sped down Route 30 at 100 mph and slammed into the parking lot where it hit a Toyota Highlander and crashed in a ditch. The driver and all 17 passengers in the limo died as did two men standing in the lot.
The limousine weighed nearly seven tons, making it bigger than the smallest trucks previously forbidden from traveling on the road by DOT. But the rule change did not apply to limousines.
The Excursion was owned by Shahed Hussain, a longtime undercover informant for the FBI who operated a rundown motel in the Saratoga County town of Wilton. Hussain’s son, Nauman, 31, is the only person facing criminal charges in the crash for allegedly failing to maintain the vehicle’s brakes and employing a driver who was not properly licensed.
The crash is the worst highway transportation disaster in the United States in more than a decade.
Loden’s letter and other correspondence between him and the DOT and the Schoharie town supervisor at the time detail the concern over Route 30/Route 30A intersection, which the DOT redesigned in 2011. The letters were recently made public by an attorney for the Apple Barrel, which is one of the defendants being sued by families of the victims in state Supreme Court.
In other letters, Loden faults the DOT’S “negligent design” for essentially turning the Apple Barrel’s parking lot into a “runoff ” for runaway trucks — not unlike the emergency runaway ramps on the side of highways for trucks experiencing brake failure.
In a Feb. 11, 2013, letter to the DOT, then-schoharie town supervisor Gene Milone shared his concerns as well.
“If the intersection design promotes an escape route for out of control vehicles, there is (a) serious question why this has been allowed,” Milone wrote.
The DOT responded to Loden and Milone’s concerns. In April 2013, the DOT banned all trucks over 18 tons from traveling down that section of Route 30 toward the Apple Barrel, although smaller delivery trucks and school buses were still allowed.
In January 2015, the DOT banned trucks over five tons going south, although later that year, all trucks were banned completely to avoid confusion. A DOT traffic sign at the top of the steep part of Route 30, just after the intersection with Route 7, states that truck traffic is prohibited.
The DOT’S design of that stretch of Route 30 was ruled by the National Transportation Safety Board not to be a contributing factor in the cause of the crash. But the Excursion was indeed as heavy as a truck, weighing 13,800 pounds, or nearly seven tons, raising questions about whether or not Scott Lisinicchia, the limo driver, was aware of the danger. The NTSB investigation of the crash included scathing criticism of DOT and state the Department of Motor Vehicles over their inability to shut down Prestige Limousine, the limo operation owned by Shahed Hussain and operated by his son.
DOT spokesman Joe Morrissey declined comment citing the pending litigation, although the DOT is not a defendant in the civil lawsuit in which Loden’s letters are included. DOT is a defendant in several other lawsuits that accused the agency of negligence.
Neither Loden nor his attorney returned calls seeking comment.
Lisinicchia, of Lake George, had picked up the 16 passengers on the day of the crash from Amsterdam. They were on their way to a birthday party in Cooperstown, although the route the driver took was not direct, which has led to speculation that he might have been lost.
Witnesses interviewed by State Police after the crash said they saw Lisinicchia turn off Route 7 onto Route 30 south and pull over to the side of the road where four “no trucks” signs are prominently displayed.
“The witness was able to observe the driver as the limo passed and described him as ‘confused’ or ‘frazzled,’” the NTSB report states. “One of the witnesses stated that as they passed, the driver was pointing to the valley.”
The NTSB report also notes that Lisinicchia and other drivers who used the Excursion complained about the limo’s brakes and other mechanical issues.
“The driver had, in the past, refused to drive until the vehicle was fixed,” the NTSB report notes. NTSB officials interviewed Lisinicchia’s wife after the crash.