Driver heard ‘boom,’ no warning before Skagit River bridge collapse
Jun 11, 2014, 12:38 PM | Updated: 3:21 pm
The driver of an oversize truck, who hit the I-5 Skagit River bridge last year, says he had no indication anything was wrong until he heard “a horrendous boom.”
The comments are included in documents released Wednesday as part of an investigation, still underway, by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into the May 23, 2013 crash that demolished the bridge and sent two vehicles into the water.
Trucker William Scott was nearing the end of his driving day, pulling a load out of Canada southbound on I-5. He was following a pilot car and told federal investigators he contacted the driver of the pilot car more than once because some of the bridge clearances on I-5 “looked tight.”
A transcript of the interview quotes Scott as saying the pilot car driver told him they were “good all the way,” meaning for the rest of their route that day. And as the oversize truck approached the bridge, Scott told investigators “nobody said nothing.”
The driver said another truck passed him on the bridge in the left lane and “squeezed me” to the right. The truck clipped a truss, collapsing the bridge into the river. Remarkably, nobody was killed or seriously injured.
The driver of the pilot car, Tammy Detray, told investigators she met up with the truck at the border crossing in Sumas, B.C. She said she believed her measuring pole was high enough to guide the oversize truck based on the truck driver’s permit. She said she did not measure the height of the load herself because she was not the first driver to guide the truck, which originated in Canada.
Detray said her guide pole never struck the bridge. But another motorist, Dale Ogden, who was following the truck and pilot car told investigators the guide pole hit the bridge members four or five times.
The documents released by the NTSB include police reports, transcripts of interviews, permits, photos, documents and other data gathered during the investigation.
A final report, with recommendations from the NTSB, is due out next month.
