An unidentified woman and man were killed when their minivan was smashed between two tractor-trailers in the chain-reaction crash that took place just before 7 p.m. one mile north of the Hegins exit in Frailey Township, authorities said.
Authorities said a vehicle fire and the heavy fog may have combined to cause the pileup, which snared two tractor-trailers, five vehicles and 11 people.
"That's the story we're getting right now," said Trooper Emory Faith of the state police barracks in Frackville. "We still have witnesses to talk to so we can get a better picture of what happened."
Authorities said the crash was possibly caused by a car fire on the right side of the highway, wet, slippery conditions and poor visibility caused by heavy fog. The two tractor-trailers swerved and caught the minivan between them, triggering the chain reaction that caused four other vehicles to crash.
Witnesses told police that the smoke was so thick it was impossible to see what the traffic was ahead.
"All of sudden I saw a car fire to the right," said Anne Eggers of Middletown, N.Y., who was on her way home from Hersheypark. "I screamed Oh my God,' hit my brakes, swerved, and luckily I didn't hit anybody."
Her husband was sleeping in the passenger side, and her two children were in the back seat.
A Ford Mustang slammed into their pop-up camper, which absorbed most of the shock, she said.
When emergency personnel from Tremont arrived on the scene, they were unable to reach the people inside the van.
"You couldn't see the people inside, I could only hear one person yelling for help," said Stephen Barrett, a member of the Goodwill Fire Company rescue squad in Frackville.
Barrett said that due to the extent of damage to the vehicle, the rescue effort was slow and reaching the victims was difficult.
"You couldn't even tell it was a minivan," he said.
Schuylkill County Deputy Coroner Paul Vuksta, Minersville, pronounced the woman inside the minivan dead at the scene.
The man was taken to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Pottsville but died later from what firefighters called "very serious" injuries.
State police at Frackville had not released the names of the victims as of late Monday night, saying only that they were an adult male and female who were traveling in a 1993 Ford Aerostar minivan.
Two passengers driving a black Jeep Cherokee were taken to Pottsville and Good Samaritan hospitals. Both suffered injuries that were deemed not to be life threatening, authorities said.
Neither of the tractor-trailer drivers was injured.
The northbound lanes of the highway were shut down for several hours as emergency vehicles traveled south in the northbound lanes from the Minersville exit to reach the crash site.
Emergency personnel said the crash could have been a lot worse.
One firefighter said as many as 30 vehicles could have been involved in the chain-reaction accident.
"I guess we were the lucky ones, no one was hurt and we can drive away," Chris Eggers said.
Emergency personnel from throughout the region were dispatched to the area of mile marker 113 with reports of five to 30 vehicles being involved in a pileup and people trapped in the wreckage.
At the head of the pileup were a tractor-trailer, the minivan and a second tractor-trailer.
A black Jeep Cherokee slammed into the back of the second rig. Behind the Cherokee, two white sport-utility vehicles and a blue car rear-ended each other.
The vehicle fire that apparently helped start the trouble was about one-eighth of a mile south of the chain-reaction crash site. That vehicle was pulled to the side of the road, according to those at the scene, but the smoke from that fire, in combination with already poor visibility from heavy fog, is believed to have started the crash.
There were a few other minor accidents in that area just after the first crash, which may have prompted the reports of up to 30 vehicles being involved. However, none of the other accidents is believed to have involved major damage or serious injuries.
Visibility was about 30 feet as darkness set in on the mountainous terrain near the accident site, a stretch of highway where fog and accidents are common. There was a lot of debris from the crash, especially in the area of the minivan, which was hardly recognizable as a vehicle because of the damage.
