By Jim Suhr, The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The gas tank of a Missouri state highway patrolman’s Ford Crown Victoria was not to blame when the cruiser burst into flames last year after being slammed from behind during an Interstate 70 traffic stop, killing the law enforcer, federal investigators have ruled.
Virtually any type of vehicle struck from behind at high speeds could have suffered damage similar to that sustained by Trooper Michael Newton’s cruiser, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.
The gas tanks in Crown Victorias were scrutinized in recent years after a number of fiery wrecks that killed law enforcers, but the NHTSA said the gas tank of Newton’s vehicle was not compromised in the collision.
“There wasn’t any evidence of a safety-related defect,” Rae Tyson, a NHTSA spokesman, said Wednesday.
Newton, 25, had pulled over a Kansas driver on Interstate 70 near Odessa in western Missouri and was parked along the highway’s eastbound shoulder on May 22, 2003, when his car was hit from behind by a Ford F-350 truck driven by Paul Daniel, of New Hampton.
Daniel told investigators he didn’t see Newton’s patrol car on the side of the road just before 7 a.m. because of the sun.
Flames engulfed the patrol car and killed the trapped Newton, whose door was wedged shut by the crash’s impact, federal investigators said. The man Newton had pulled over -- Michael Nolte, of Overland Park, Kan. -- was pulled by two motorists from Newton’s passenger seat and survived with burns covering about 40 percent of his body.
The investigator’s report said the fire began after something still unknown ignited gasoline that apparently spewed from the vehicle’s filler tube, which was severed in the crash. The filler tube -- the channel where gasoline is pumped into the gas tank during refueling -- could have become disconnected in any type of vehicle struck from behind at that speed, the investigators concluded.
Last October, Daniel pleaded guilty in Lafayette County to misdemeanors including failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, failure to operate in a single lane, having no valid commercial license, and careless and imprudent driving. He was sentenced in December to six months in jail and about $1,900 in fines, followed by two years of probation.
Ford Motor Co. has defended the Crown Victoria’s safety and embraced the latest NHTSA report as affirmation.
“NHTSA is confirming what we’ve been trying to say all along -- the Crown Victoria is just as safe if not safer than the comparable competitor,” Ford spokeswoman Kristen Kinley said from the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Mich.
Lawsuits filed by Newton’s family and Nolte claimed the location of the Crown Victoria’s fuel tank was partly to blame for the car igniting.
In recent years, police and safety groups had questioned the safety of Crown Victoria gas tanks, given crash-related fires blamed in the deaths of at least a dozen officers nationwide since 1983.
In October 2002, NTHSA said a 10-month investigation found no defect in the cars, that the Crown Victoria exceeds federal standards for fuel system safety, and that the rate of fires was not much greater than with Chevrolet Caprice police cars.
Still, Ford -- in the wake of the government’s investigation -- agreed to retrofit the 350,000 Crown Victoria police cars nationwide with shields around the gas tank. Newton’s car had such a shield.
Ford also agreed to pay for the modifications and study ways to bolster safety in the cars, broadly used by police agencies across the country.
Shields made of plastic and rubber were installed on the rear axle, the differential and underneath the gas tanks. Those components either had been faulted in accidents or showed the potential to puncture the gas tank in crash tests.
“We have had and continue to have an interest in issues related to this particular vehicle,” Tyson said. “It’s a vehicle that’s commonly used in high-hazard situations and as such may be exposed to situations that would be abnormal for most vehicles.”
But “from our standpoint, there’s no safety defect with the Crown Victoria,” Tyson said.