A refrigerated semitrailer lost control during a long descent, jumped the median strip after crashing through the guardrails and hit a tanker lorry carrying butane and propane gases. A lorry driver in back of the food semitrailer hurried to the scene with an extinguisher, noted that fire had engulfed the cabs imprisoning the two deceased drivers and heard a leak emanating from a gas cistern valve. He then ran to prevent motorists immobilised in back of the ignited vehicle from getting any closer. A few minutes later, the cistern exploded (BLEVE-type explosion). Witnesses from surrounding villages heard a tremendous blast followed by a fireball rising into the sky. The accident caused the death of both drivers and 13 injuries among bystanders (2 of whom were gendarmes and 2 fire-fighters). Debris from the tanker lorry was ejected tens of metres. The windscreens of nearby vehicles were broken. Two lanes of the 4-lane RN 165 national highway were closed. 80 fire-fighters were mobilised; it took over 2 hours for gendarmes to clear the highway, which was not reopened before noon the next day on a single lane.

The technical investigation attributed the accident cause to the refrigerated lorry driver’s loss of concentration. No anomaly was identified in applying regulations relative to the transport of hazardous substances. Besides two road code proposals, this investigation recommended seeking solutions to improve the fire resistance of hydrocarbon cistern transport through relying on adapted external protection systems (protective sheet metal, thermal insulation, etc.) and reassessing the opportunity to utilise safety relief valves.