Several members of the US armed forces are injured, a police spokesman said. A person is believed to be killed. The police assume an accident, not an attack.
A truck rammed a US military convoy on Autobahn 3 in Upper Palatinate and set several vehicles on fire. As a police spokesman said on Monday, a person should have died in the flames. Eight members of the US Army were believed to have come to the hospital for a check-up with smoke poisoning. The police assume an accident and not an attack.
On Monday, shortly after the junction in Parsberg in the Neumarkt district in Upper Palatinate, the tractor-trailer was driven in one of three US vehicles that were on the hard shoulder. Among them was a tank truck – it was loaded with 2500 liters of jet fuel, which luckily did not ignite.
The tanks of the vehicles caught fire – not the cargo. The tires exploded, the spokesman said. Why the truck from Germany drove into the convoy was unclear. The truck was loaded with sawdust and hit the military vehicles with full force. According to police reports, the truck driver died on Monday afternoon. The driver’s cab was completely destroyed.
The highway was closed in both directions. The fire was soon extinguished. The public was never in danger because the smoke did not move towards populated areas, said the police spokesman. The spokesman for the US military base in Grafenwoehr, Upper Palatinate, Donald Wrenn, said there was no evidence of injured US soldiers. But eight were brought to a clinic for a check-up as a precaution.
The three vehicles of the US Army were traveling from Hohenfels on the A3 in the direction of Grafenwoehr when they were separated from the rest of their approved convoy at the edge of the autobahn. “While the vehicles were waiting, one was rammed.” So the others were damaged too.