This past May 4th, San Francisco area 911 operators were flooded with calls from eyewitnesses of a grisly scene on the Bay Area’s San Mateo Bridge. A limousine sat engulfed in flames, with passengers still trapped inside.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god,” an unidentified woman can be heard saying in one call. “Get out! Get out,” a man can be heard saying in another. The rear of the limo was fully engulfed in flames, preventing first responders from getting close enough to the vehicle without being burned.
Nurse Neriza Fojas was out with eight other women celebrating her recent marriage. Fojas and four others were unable to escape the blaze and died on the scene. The driver and four of the passengers escaped.
A catastrophic component failure of the rear suspension system caused the fire, according to California Highway Patrol (CHP) investigators. The air suspension and axle travel stops for the differential failed, allowing the spinning drive shaft to contact the floor pan, causing intense friction that ignited carpets and set the 1999 Lincoln Town Car ablaze.
The women screamed to the driver through the glass partition window to pull over as soon as immense smoke billowed up from the carpets and rear seat. Flames engulfed the rear of the vehicle within seconds and four of the women escaped by climbing through the driver/passenger partition space and exiting the front doors. The remaining five had succumbed to the heat and smoke and could not escape. Investigators later discovered that the child lock was engaged on at least one of the rear doors, preventing it from being opened from the inside.
Multiple wrongful death lawsuits could potentially ensue either for the failure to properly maintain and inspect the vehicle on the part of the limousine company and/or a potential defective product claim against Ford Motor Company, the maker of Lincoln vehicles.
References:
The Tampa Tribune
