Report: Driver lost control of gas-filled tanker before fire collapsed I-95

Philadelphia — The driver of a tractor-trailer hauling gasoline lost control on an off-ramp and flipped the tanker truck on its side in a wreck that set it afire and destroyed a section of the East Coast’s main north-south highway, Pennsylvania’s top transportation official said Monday.

In the first official accounting of a wreck that threw hundreds of thousands of morning commutes into chaos and disrupted untold numbers of businesses, state Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll said the driver was northbound “trying to navigate the curve, lost control of the vehicle, landed on its side and ruptured the tank.”

As a result, Interstate 95 will be closed in both directions for weeks at the start of summer travel season. The elevated southbound portion of I-95 will have to be demolished, as well as the northbound side, Carroll said. Motorists should avoid the northeast corner of the sixth-largest city in the country, transportation officials said.

Pennsylvania State Police said a body recovered from the wreckage on the off-ramp from I-95 has been turned over to the Philadelphia medical examiner and coroner. Authorities are in the process of identifying the remains, police said. Gov. Josh Shapiro

said he “found myself thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died.”

The accident also disrupted the automotive route from Canada to Florida through the Boston, New York and Washington metropolitan areas.

Shapiro signed a disaster declaration Monday, saying it gives state agencies the ability to skip normal bidding-and-contracting requirements.