Driver Killed in Explosion of Gas Tanker

A jackknifed tanker truck loaded with gasoline exploded into a massive fireball late Saturday morning, killing its 23-year-old driver and spewing a huge column of noxious gray smoke that closed the northbound lanes of the Ventura Freeway for more than three hours.

The truck’s cab flipped upside-down about 11:20 a.m. as the driver rounded a curve on the raised freeway connector. When the truck flipped, the tank--filled with more than 8,000 gallons of gasoline--jumped the metal railing, plunged into the dry Ventura River bottom and exploded.

The cab, which remained on the freeway, and the tanker burned for about an hour, igniting a small brush fire in the riverbed and charring the truck and about 120 feet of railing along the elevated roadway that connects California 33 and the northbound Ventura Freeway near downtown Ventura.

Witnesses said the deafening explosion rocked their cars and shot flames hundreds of feet into the air and across two lanes of traffic.

“It was just a huge ball of orange flames,” said Greg Jex of Murietta, 42, who was driving north on the Ventura Freeway with his wife and two daughters. “We didn’t see it flip over but we saw the explosions. There must have been like three or four explosions in all.”

The driver, Carlos Humberto Alonzo of Oxnard, was burned beyond recognition. He was identified by a gasoline sales slip recovered from the truck’s cab.

Alonzo had just loaded the Atlas Bulk Carriers tanker with fuel in Ventura and was headed to Goleta, said Adrian Delhierro, the weekend manager at Atlas Bulk Carrier’s Oxnard office. Alonzo had operated big rigs since he was 16, Delhierro said.

Several drivers who were headed north on the Ventura Freeway have told authorities they saw the explosion, but California Highway Patrol officers are looking for anyone who might have seen what caused the accident, Officer Dave Cockrill said.

Fire crews wearing protective suits and oxygen masks battled the blaze while onlookers covered their mouths with T-shirts to protect themselves from choking smoke.

Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss contributed to this story.