The key facts

  • The accident occurred early in the morning on November 8 at the 236th kilometer of the Yekaterinburg — Tyumen highway in the Talitsky district of Sverdlovsk Region
  • The driver and passenger of the FAW tractor unit died at the scene; the driver of the towed dump truck was injured and taken to hospital
  • According to preliminary data from the State Traffic Inspectorate, the tractor unit’s driver was traveling at an unsafe speed and failed to keep a safe distance

What happened on the highway

Early in the morning on November 8, at the 236th kilometer of the federal Yekaterinburg — Tyumen highway in the Talitsky district of Sverdlovsk Region, a collision of three trucks occurred. According to the regional State Traffic Inspectorate, a FAW tractor unit traveling in the right lane toward Tyumen crashed into a pair of dump trucks of the same brand: one was towing the second, broken-down truck on a rigid tow bar. Gazeta.Ru reported on the accident and Life.ru, citing the agency.

Preliminary version and consequences

“According to preliminary data, the driver of the FAW tractor unit, traveling in the right lane toward Tyumen at an unsafe speed, failed to maintain constant control over the vehicle’s movement, as a result of which he did not keep a safe distance and collided with the FAW dump trucks moving ahead,” — the State Traffic Inspectorate’s statement reads in the Gazeta.Ru publication. The impact proved fatal for two people in the truck’s cab — the driver and the passenger. Another participant in the accident, who was operating the towed dump truck, was injured and taken to hospital — Life.ru provides these details. Footage from the scene shows that the tractor unit’s cab was completely crushed, and the semi-trailer was torn apart by the impact, with the cargo spilling onto the road.

What is known about the investigation

Traffic inspectors and a forensic investigative team are working at the section of the highway. The State Traffic Inspectorate statedthat an investigation has been launched, within which all circumstances of the incident and the identities of the deceased will be established; the final causes of the accident remain to be determined by law enforcement. The outlets also recall recent major accidents involving freight transport: on October 24, at the 807th kilometer of the Amur highway in the Amur Region, Renault and Sitrak trucks collided, both drivers died, and on October 21, near Tobolsk, a minivan crashed into a stationary MAN truck and caught fire — seven people died then, and two more were injured.