Five Fatalities Result from Van Crash in Fayette County

Five people were killed this morning in a van crash in Fayette County.

A transport van was traveling on eastbound I-70, about three miles west of Vandalia just after 9:30am when the incident occurred.  A witness told authorities that they could see the wheels on the van "shimmying" just prior to the incident.

The van ran off the roadway and into the median.  The driver apparently tried to bring the van back onto the roadway but overcorrected.  The van came back up onto and across both eastbound lanes and then ran off the south side of the interstate and rolled down an embankment.  Several people were ejected from the vehicle.

There were 11 people traveling in the 15-passenger van.  The five people killed were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash.  The other six people were injured; two were taken to Greenville Regional Hospital, four were taken to Fayette County Hospital in Vandalia. 

Indications are that there was no one from our area on the van.  The driver of the van is from Pennsylvania and the van is bearing Maryland plates.

Eastbound traffic at the scene of the crash was closed for a time this morning, but one lane of the roadway is now open.