13 Killed as Van Hits Big Rig

A van that had been stripped of its rear passenger seats and packed with 17 people crashed into a tractor-trailer on an icy interstate east of Albuquerque early Saturday, killing 13 people.

The van’s driver apparently did not notice that traffic had slowed because of an accident ahead and plowed under the back end of the big rig, Santa Fe County Undersheriff Benjie Montano said.

He said there did not appear to be any signs of braking by the van.

U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said authorities found documents in the van suggesting that the occupants were Mexican nationals from the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca.

Border Patrol Agent Garth Rogers said he spoke to one of the survivors and was told the van was headed to Kentucky. The driver had a list of names and amounts he was being paid for transporting the agricultural workers, Rogers said.

The accident’s aftermath “was gruesome,” said towing company owner Michael Tavenner.

There was about an inch of ice on Interstate 40 where the crash occurred, Tavenner said. An overnight storm had left 2 to 3 inches of snow in the region, and wind had blown it into drifts 16 inches deep.

Investigators were working with the Mexican Consulate in Albuquerque to identify the occupants and determine whether they had entered the United States legally, Montano said.

The consulate had not issued any statements by late Saturday.

The crash occurred about 2 a.m. on a straight stretch of the interstate about 35 miles east of Albuquerque.

Three surviving passengers, two men and a woman, were in satisfactory condition at University Hospital in Albuquerque, and another man was in critical condition, hospital spokeswoman Cindy Foster said. All of the deceased were men.

The truck driver did not require hospitalization.

Kris Klinek, general manager at a travel center near the interstate, said the stretch of highway where the accident occurred is notoriously dangerous in poor weather. In January, a car filled with teenagers crashed, killing two; and in December 1996, four members of a Mexican mariachi group died when their van was hit by a tractor-trailer.