Virginia made national news at the beginning of April when dense fog along Interstate 77 led to a fatal vehicle pileup involving 95 cars and over a dozen separate crashes. All three fatalities connected with the pileup involved commercial tractor-trailers.
According to the Associated Press, the pileup took place on Easter Sunday, March 31, at around one in the afternoon. As fog descended upon the area near Fancy Gap Mountain, vehicles traveling near mile marker five lost most visibility. Once one wreck took place, other vehicles traveling behind had difficulty stopping in time to avoid a collision, causing a chain-reaction crash. The Virginia State Police reported that almost one hundred cars were involved in 17 different crashes, sending 25 people to the hospital.
Three people were killed in the fog-related Virginia vehicle accident. Authorities reported that 33-year-old William Sosebee and 71-year-old Kathern Worley both died at the scene of the accident after two separate vehicles collided with the same tractor-trailer. Another person, 21-year-old Andrew Katbi, was a passenger of a car that rear-ended a different tractor-trailer. Police stated that he, too, died at the scene of the accident.
Reports of severe fog in the area started early on Sunday morning and continued throughout the day, though investigators have not determined for certain the cause of the initial accident that set off the chain-reaction crash. About 30 miles of highway was closed as emergency crews helped the injured and cleared the wreckage. At the same time, the northbound lanes of the interstate were closed due to dense fog and visibility of only a few dozen feet.