23rd June, 2019
A pickup truck hauling a trailer has collided with a group of 10 motorcyclists on a rural highway, killing seven of them.
The crash on Saturday in remote northern New Hampshire, United States involved members of Marine JarHeads, a motorcycle club that includes Marines and their spouses, authorities said.
According to Yahoo News tragedy sent shockwaves through New England’s communities of motorcyclists and military veterans, which often overlap.
“When something like this happens, we all feel it,” said Cat Wilson, who organizes a motorcycle charity event in Massachusetts and is a friend of some of the crash victims. “There is no tighter community than our biker community.”
Authorities identified the pickup driver as Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, an employee of a Springfield, Massachusetts, company called Westfield Transport.
Zhukovskyy survived the accident, did not need to be hospitalised and has not been charged, authorities said, but they didn’t address details on his whereabouts.
Dartanyan Gasanov, the owner of Westfield Transport, told The Boston Globe that he planned to talk to investigators Monday and has been unable to reach Zhukovskyy, who has not been answering phone calls.
The National Transportation Safety Board is among the agencies investigating. Authorities asked for the public’s help in the form of videos, photos or other information about the accident or the vehicles involved.