WTHR |Tire failure may have caused deadly I-69 crash

Tire failure may have caused deadly I-69 crash

Phil Scott/Eyewitness News

Muncie - A tire blowout may have caused a van carrying passengers from an Amish community to flip over on a highway, killing three children and two adults, police said Monday. Eleven others were injured in the crash.

Five people, including three children, died in the single-vehicle accident on Interstate 69 north of Muncie late Sunday afternoon.

The van, which was carrying two Amish families, one from near Fort Wayne, the other from Parke County, was traveling south on I-69 near mile marker 49 around 4:30 p.m. when it crossed the median and flipped, landing on its side in the northbound lanes. Several of the 16 passengers were ejected from the van as it rolled, four of them were dead by the time help arrived.

"I just saw the van rolling, people running toward the van to help people out," said eyewitness Ramesh Arza.

Other witnesses saw the rear left tire on the van blow out before the crash, and police said in a statement that a preliminary investigation of the tires confirmed those observations.

The children killed in the crash ranged in age from an infant to 12 years old. One of the adults was the male driver of the van. Eleven injured people were trapped in the van.

"My mom went up to take a blanket, and she said it was something she never wanted to see again," another witness, Lakyn Boyd said.

"I could see many children, six or seven of them," Arza said. "We were able to pull them out and give them blankets."

Five survivors left by ambulance, and six were flown by air ambulance to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and to hospitals in Fort Wayne.

"At one time we had several helicopters lined up in the northbound lane of I-69 to transport the injured," said Indiana State Police Sergeant Rod Russell.

Emergency crews closed the interstate in both directions between Muncie and Gas City as they tended to the victims and cleared the roadway. The southbound lanes reopened about two hours later, while the northbound lanes were closed until 9 p.m.

Police are investigating tire failure as a possible cause of the accident.

While Amish traditionally shun motor vehicles and other conveniences as part of their faith, sometimes they hire non-Amish drivers for transportation.

Investigators released the name of those killed early Monday morning. They are: 39-year-old Melvin Fisher, Savilla Fisher, 16-year-old Ruben Fisher, 11-year-old Christian Fisher and one-year-old Eli Fisher, all of Rockville, Indiana.

The crash occurred about 20 miles south of where a Taylor University van was struck by a semi in April 2006, killing four students and a university employee and injuring five others.

This past April, four Amish were among eight people killed in an accident on the Indiana Toll Road east of South Bend.