Deadly crash in Toronto area may have involved mechanical failure: police

TORONTO – A deadly crash on a busy toll highway north of Toronto may have been caused by a mechanical failure in one of the vehicles involved, Ontario Provincial Police said Thursday.

Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said a malfunction on a fuel truck is among the primary theories police are investigating as they probe the fiery collision that killed two men Wednesday afternoon on Highway 407 in Vaughan, Ont.

While human factors are also part of the investigation and no theories have been eliminated, Schmidt said mechanical issues are currently viewed among the most likely causes.

“One of the possibilities is that the vehicle had a … malfunction such as a suspension or tire blowout which caused the vehicle to veer,” Schmidt said.

A 41-year-old fuel truck driver from Brampton, Ont., and a 49-year-old man from Mississauga, Ont., who was driving a passenger vehicle were killed in the collision, which sent smoke billowing over the area for several kilometres and shuttered a stretch of the highway for more than 12 hours.

Schmidt said the men’s identities will not be released immediately.

Police had previously said that the westbound fuel tanker jumped the median and collided with an eastbound vehicle, but Schmidt said further investigation has shed new light on events.

Both vehicles were in fact heading westbound in the seconds before the crash, he said.

“I think the truck veered off hard left, took the car with it as it came over,” he said. “They both ended up on the eastbound side.”

Both vehicles were consumed by flames when they collided, Schmidt said, adding the extensive damage will pose additional challengers for investigators. On Thursday, marks where the vehicles mounted and crossed the median were visible on the concrete barrier.

Other officials offered their own accounts of the blaze caused by the collision.

“When our firefighters arrived, they weren’t able to get close to it because of the heat coming off of it,” said deputy fire Chief Andrew Zvanitajs, a member of the Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service.

It took two hours to extinguish the blaze, officials said.

Mississauga resident Robert Kostiuk said he was returning home from work in Pickering, Ont., when he saw a vehicle ahead of him heading toward the median.

“When I saw it driving sideways, I knew that something was wrong,” said Kostiuk, who recorded the crash on his dashboard camera and posted the video to YouTube.

Schmidt said there was some concern about fuel spilling into a nearby waterway. Officials from the provincial Environment Ministry were called in to assess the scene.

Highway 407 reopened to regular traffic at roughly 6 a.m. Thursday.