I-70 reopens after Missouri missile truck wrecks

MIDDLETOWN, Md. -- Police reopened Interstate 70 to traffic early Saturday, hours after a Missouri company's semi rig carrying unarmed Navy missiles ran off the road and overturned.

The eight missiles did not spill from the truck, which careened down an embankment and landed on its side in a ditch alongside eastbound I-70 about 8:45 a.m. Friday.

The truck was going through a construction zone when the driver hit the side wall of a bridge, causing his load to shift and the truck to flip over, state police Sgt. T.O. Rouse said.

The truck was carrying eight Navy SLAM-ER missiles, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. George Rhynedance said. The missile is among the weapons the United States could use to attack terrorist sites in Afghanistan or elsewhere.

Alan Williams, a member of a Maryland Department of the Environment hazardous response team, said each missile was loaded with rocket fuel and stored in an individual container, but not armed.

Don Lumpkins of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency said none of the rocket fuel on the missiles or diesel fuel on the truck leaked.

Neither the truck's driver, Danny L. Harkey, 49, of Joplin, Mo., nor his passenger, Daniel C. King, 39, of Flower Mound, Texas, was injured. Harkey was charged with negligent driving after police conducted a post-crash inspection on the vehicle.

After the accident, police shut down 1-70 in both directions, routing traffic through West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Authorities also evacuated the area -- forcing the relocation of 41 people from a housing complex -- and imposed a no-fly zone that was three miles in diameter and 3,000 feet high.

Members of the U.S. Armed Forces Emergency Ordnance Disposal Unit flew to the scene from Andrews Air Force Base in a state police helicopter. They inspected the missiles and safeguarded them for transport, police said.

Harkey and King worked for Joplin-based Tri-State Motor Transit, a company that moves more than 25 percent of the military munitions transported nationwide, according to Fleet Owner, a trucking industry trade publication.