PHILADELPHIA — A New Jersey tanker truck company linked to a fiery crash that destroyed a section of I-95 this week was involved in a similar incident in 2015 — just a few miles away from the site of Sunday’s blaze.
Tanker trucker Nathan Moody is presumed to have lost control of his rig while exiting an off-ramp near the Cottman exit on I-95, triggering a crash that ignited some 8,500 gallons of gasoline and torched a section of highway. Relatives said Moody, a truck owner-operator, worked for TK Transport Inc, a gas-supply company based in Pennsauken, New Jersey.
Eight years ago, another driver working for TK Transport lost control of his tanker truck while coming off a ramp near the Betsy Ross bridge. The truck burst into flames, causing nearly $1 million in damages and shuttering the busy highway ramp.
The driver, who ran from that inferno, blamed the February crash on “black ice,” but officials later concluded he had been speeding. He was later found to have multiple driver’s licenses.
TK Transport, a subsidiary of Chester Springs, Pennsylvania-based Penn Tank Lines, gave little comment at that time. Two different company representatives said they were not allowed to speak when reached by reporters this week.
During the 2015 crash, reporters found that federal records showed the company was “not authorized” to haul hazardous materials across state lines. As of this week, an online company profile maintained by the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration indicated that TK Transport was still “not authorized” to operate in an interstate capacity.
Enforcement records maintained by the FMCSA also show that Penn Tank Lines paid a $62,650 last year to settle a series of violations related to the mishandling of hazardous materials, including breaches of regulations related to driver training and tanker truck safety.
That TK Transport wasn’t authorized to transport across state lines concerned Bob Mongeluzzi, a Philadelphia lawyer with Saltz, Mongeluzzi & Bendesky who has handled transportation-related liability cases, including other trucking cases and the 2015 Amtrak derailment in the city.
“That certainly surprises me,” he said. “Under the regs, assuming the posting is accurate, they would not be able to operate in interstate commerce.”
Such carriers could still legally lend their vehicles to authorized companies for interstate transport. But if the company is indeed not authorized to transport goods across state lines, he said, that could be a major factor in any liability cases that stem from the crash.
“Pitch number one would be: The accident wouldn’t have occurred,” if the company had abided by the licensing restriction, Mongeluzzi said.
Less surprising, Mongeluzzi said, was information from the FMCSA that TK Transport vehicles and drivers had not been subject to inspections for at least the past two years, according to federal records.
There are millions of commercial trucks in the country, he said, and there are far too few inspectors to keep track of them all.
“There’s been a constant tension between too much regulation and not enough regulation. Sometimes that’s a political issue, sometimes it’s a finance issue,” he said. “It is the carriers themselves, the private companies, that have the obligation to make sure they are in compliance with the rules.”
Depending on the circumstances that caused the crash, Moody’s family could potentially sue TK Transport if the driver was an independent contractor and not directly employed by the company.
The condition of the vehicle, and whether it was well maintained, would be key questions in such a suit, Mongeluzzi said. Tractor trailers have the equivalent of an airplane’s black box in them to record the details of trips, and data gathered from that device will be critical to an investigation. Whether that device survived the fire any better than the highway bridge, though, is uncertain.
“The problem, and I’ve had this because I’ve handled a multitude of fire cases, (is) they can be incinerated,” Mongeluzzi said.
A company of its size, the lawyer said, likely has liability insurance with a cap around $10 million, which pales compared to the repair costs for the highway or the costs to businesses and commuters.
“You’re talking about literally billions of dollars,” he said. “There is no way that a TK Transport could possibly have the insurance coverage for the assets to pay for that.”
Officials have released few official details about the crash as investigators have picked through the molten tanker chassis and other scorched remnants left by the conflagration.
At a news conference with federal officials on Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Police Capt. Gerard B. McShea confirmed that an unnamed company had contacted law enforcement to assist in identifying the driver, and has since been cooperative with the investigation.
Isaac Moody, of Willow Grove, said his first cousin Nathan Moody, who is listed on public records as age 53, lived in New Jersey and had obtained a hazmat license to work short distance supply runs to gas stations within the region – as opposed to long haul trucking – in order to spend more time with his 7-year-old daughter.
“He always said he wanted that girl to grow up with her daddy,” he said. “That little girl was everything to him.”
