Crash

An elderly driver and his wife were rescued from their burning car after the man's improper lane change in trying to exit the Baltimore Beltway led to a fiery crash with two tractor-trailers that closed the highway for hours yesterday, state police said. The driver, 82-year-old William Rush, and his wife were rescued from their burning 2001 Cadillac by an off-duty Baltimore firefighter and an unknown bystander, authorities said. Rush stopped on the outer loop of the Beltway near the Reisterstown Road exit about 10 a.m.; then, while trying to cross lanes to leave the interstate, he drove into the path of a tractor-trailer carrying 24 tons of agricultural lime, according to state police.

Three friends bound for a NASCAR race in Tennessee were killed yesterday when their small plane crashed shortly after takeoff into a patch of woods near a Jacksonville home. Baltimore County police identified the victims as Theodore C. Ryder, 45, who was piloting the aircraft, Paul E. Sorensen, 48, and Timothy H. Conner, 48 - all from Joppa. There were no injuries on the ground, officials said. Officials said the plane, a six-seat Piper Saratoga, took off from Harford County Airport in Churchville at 9:06 a.m. and crashed about nine minutes later.

ISSUE: The driver of a Lincoln Navigator whose trailer came loose on the Bay Bridge in May was "solely at fault" for the deadly multivehicle crash that resulted, according to a police investigation, but prosecutors have decided that they have no grounds for charging him with any traffic offenses. Three Eastern Shore men died in the seven-vehicle collision May 10, which closed the westbound span of the bridge well into the night and backed up traffic for miles. A report released last week by the Maryland Transportation Authority Police concluded that there was no evidence that the driver of the Navigator, Stephen A. Burt of Rockville, had used a safety hitch pin to secure the single-axle trailer to his vehicle.

Alcohol and speed appear to have contributed to a single-vehicle crash in Linthicum early yesterday that claimed the life of a Baltimore woman, said the state police at the Glen Burnie barracks. Sudi Sharifa Smith, 25, of the 5200 block of St. Charles Ave., died in the wreck, which occurred shortly before 5 a.m. on Baltimore-Washington Expressway near West Nursery Road. Richard Rolanzo Queen, 38, of the 700 block of Peach Orchard Lane in Dundalk was driving a 1998 Chevrolet Suburban northbound in the left lane when he lost control of the vehicle and swerved off the left side of the road, police said.

Twenty years later, Robert Booker is still haunted by things he saw on a bitterly cold Sunday on the railroad tracks behind his home. Booker, then 19, was hailed as a hero for what he did that day - Jan. 4, 1987 - when a northbound Amtrak Colonial slammed into an errant train of three Conrail freight locomotives near the small eastern Baltimore County community of Chase. Sixteen people died. The total might have gone far higher if not for the efforts of Booker, his cousin Michael Cooper and other neighbors and first responders who rushed to a scene of blood and twisted metal to pull survivors from the smoking wreckage.

On July 13, a Friday night, five teenagers - four of them students at Centennial High School in Howard County - got a break. So did their parents. The boys were driving around together just past midnight when the 16-year-old driver lost control of an Acura and crashed. All were injured badly enough to put them in the hospital. Thankfully, none died. This was a story that struck close to home because my son just graduated from Centennial in June. Some of the names were very familiar. I'm glad it didn't turn out worse.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A Kenya Airways jet with 114 people aboard crashed early yesterday in a dense forest in the western Africa nation of Cameroon, government officials said, but efforts to reach the wreckage were hampered by heavy rainfall. There was no information on survivors. Airline officials said they lost contact with the Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 only 11 minutes after its midnight takeoff from Douala, Cameroon. Kenya Airway's Flight 507, which originated in the Ivory Coast, was carrying 105 passengers from 23 countries, including one American, airport officials said.

Union agrees to vote on labor contract Officials from the Baltimore County government and the union representing its civilian workers will allow the union's members to vote on a proposed labor contract that includes pay raises and a contentious change in retirement benefits. Negotiators for the county and the local chapter of the Federation of Public Employees missed last week's deadline for an agreement. But two County Council members asked representatives from both sides this week to allow the union's members to vote on a county proposal that union negotiators had rejected.

A 20-year-old St. Mary's County man was killed in his hometown of Hollywood early yesterday when the car he was driving veered out of control, overturned and struck a tree, the county sheriff's office said. Police responding to the crash about 4:30 a.m. found a 2003 Dodge Neon SRT 4 flipped over and its driver, James W. Wendler, dead. The car had been traveling north on Clark's Mill Road near Paige Lane, the sheriff's office said. Speed and alcohol were believed to have contributed to the crash, authorities said.

W. Clark Gaither and his wife were lingering over cups of post-lunch coffee in the kitchen of their Clarksville farmhouse. It was shortly after noon Nov. 23, 1962. For crew and passengers on board United Flight 297, bound from Newark, N.J., to Atlanta, it was just another routine trip on a brilliant late autumn afternoon. Traveling at 10,000 feet, the plane was preparing for a landing at Washington's National Airport, its only stop on its journey to Atlanta. Air traffic controllers at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center and the Washington Approach Control Center radioed reports to Flight 297 that small flocks of large birds had been sighted by other pilots in the area.

3 hurt in crash on U.S. 1 in Elkridge Three people were hurt Friday in a crash on U.S. 1 in Elkridge when a 16-year-old driver of a southbound Chevrolet Trailblazer lost control near Old Washington Road about 5 p.m. and hit a flatbed tow truck headed north, Howard County police said. The Trailblazer was then hit by a Chevrolet Cavalier. The Trailblazer driver, an Elkridge resident who was not identified, along with Pauline Lesane, 52, of Pikesville and her passenger in the Cavalier, Eric Lesane, 19, were taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

The stoplight at the northern Baltimore County intersection where a Baltimore Sun editor was killed in a collision with a United Parcel Service truck Monday morning is in good repair and was operating in a standard green-yellow-red manner at the time of the crash, officials said. The investigation into the death of business editor Timothy M. Wheatley was continuing Tuesday, but the early indication was that one of the drivers involved in the crash ran a red light, according to Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey.

A Baltimore County police detective assigned to the Towson Precinct died Thursday afternoon at Maryland Shock Trauma Center after his personal pickup truck crashed and overturned near an intersection by the small community of Cooperstown in the northern part of the county. Pronounced dead shortly after 2 p.m. was Detective Jason Simons, 32, a seven-year member of the force, who was off duty at the time, said Cpl. Mike Hill, a Police Department spokesman. Hill said Simons was driving a 1998 Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck eastbound on Maryland Route 88 (Black Rock Road)

A Maryland Transit Administration official said Wednesday that the state plans to check the electronic system controlling Baltimore's subway trains after federal safety officials warned that glitches with a similar control system for Washington's Metro might have caused a fatal crash there in June. Vern Hartsock, MTA's deputy director for engineering and construction, said he expects to meet today with a team of experts in response to a call by the National Transportation Safety Board to examine similar train control systems for problems or weaknesses.

A Reisterstown woman was killed Tuesday morning after her car crashed into a delivery truck on Interstate 795 north of Owings Mills Boulevard, closing the northbound roadway for about three hours, according to Maryland State Police. Amy L. Brooking, 21, of the first block of Sebastian Court was pronounced dead at Sinai Hospital, police said. Brooking was driving a 2004 Honda Civic south in the left lane of I-795 about 10:30 a.m., approaching the Owings Mills metro station, when her car crossed the median and struck a box truck, police said.

Sykesville physician killed in Route 32 crash 3 A 49-year-old Sykesville physician who had supported a group pushing for safety improvements on Route 32 in Howard County died in a three-vehicle accident on that road Thursday evening, according to police. Dr. Brian Edgar Emery, an ear, nose and throat specialist who lived in the 12000 block of Forest Creek Court, was pronounced dead at the scene after the Acura he was driving was struck from behind by a northbound Chevrolet Express van about 5:30 p.m. as Emery waited to make a left turn onto Amberwoods Way, police said.

Maryland's medevac officials told state lawmakers Tuesday that they have addressed problems raised by a sharply critical audit and also upgraded equipment and procedures to improve safety after last year's fatal crash. The briefing came weeks before the anniversary of a Sept. 27 crash in Prince George's County that killed four people - the deadliest accident since Maryland State Police began flying the missions four decades ago. Maj. A. J. McAndrew said the aviation command is in the process of adopting all of the auditor recommendations.

Metrorail passengers frustrated with jerkier rides and longer waits for trains after June's Red Line crash can expect those irritations to continue indefinitely as operators run every train in the system manually. Metro does not have precise data on how much slower the system is moving, but spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said trains controlled by operators tend to spend more time at station platforms and take extra time to accelerate than do trains run by computers. "You could lose a couple of minutes from one end [of a line]

Michael Phelps, who holds the Olympic record with 14 gold medals for swimming, was shaken but apparently uninjured Thursday night when the late-model Cadillac Escalade he was driving in Mid-Town Belvedere collided with another vehicle, seriously damaging Phelps' vehicle, the other car and a parked vehicle, police said. The female driver of the Honda Accord was taken to an area hospital as a precaution, police said. Shortly before 9 p.m., Phelps, 24, was driving the Cadillac east in the 100 block of E. Biddle St. when he entered the intersection at the 1100 block of N. Calvert St. and collided with a Honda Accord driven north in the 1100 block of N. Calvert St. by a woman.

Two Md. women die in N.C. collision Two Maryland women were killed and seven other passengers injured in a head-on collision Sunday near Vanceboro, N.C., according to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. Authorities said Loriann Bobotek, 47, of the 4000 block of Hopi Court in Ellicott City was driving a Dodge Caravan south on U.S. 17 when she attempted to pass a vehicle on the two-lane highway. Bobotek's van slammed into a Mitsubishi Montero driven by Christina Sonn, 35, of the 3000 block of Edwards Ave. in Parkville, according to authorities.