OHP: Braking System Defect Likely Contributed To Deadly Crash

Wednesday, October 4th 2006, 6:20 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says that a defect within the braking system of a tractor-trailer involved in a fatal crash that killed a state trooper likely contributed to the deadly accident.

OHP Trooper Kera Philippi says investigators with the Department of Public Safety still are working to determine what caused the two-fatality crash on eastbound Interstate 44 near Claremore on Sunday that killed 37-year-old Trooper William L. McClendon and 25-year-old Hussein Haji-ege Osman of Kansas City, Missouri.

Philippi says McClendon and Osman both were traveling eastbound in the right lane of the interstate when McClendon attempted to make a U-turn in a gap in the retaining wall.

She says that as McClendon entered into the left eastbound lane, Osman swerved his tractor-trailer into the inside lane and slammed into McClendon's 2006 Dodge Charger patrol car.

Investigators still are trying to determine if the defective brakes on the trailer kept Osman from stopping in time to avoid a collision or caused him to swerve into the left lane.