Johnson County, Wyoming truck crash kills 2

Robert Moffitt was driving the tractor-trailer loaded with sacks of bentonite early Tuesday evening when it lost its brakes coming down Powder River Pass.

The Associated Press

9/6/2012

BUFFALO, Wyo. — Two people are dead after a heavily loaded semi lost its brakes on a steep slope on the eastern flanks of the Bighorn Mountains.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol identifies the victims as driver 60-year-old Robert D. Moffitt and passenger 58-year-old Margaret S. Moffitt, both of Leesburg, Fla.

Robert Moffitt was driving the tractor-trailer loaded with sacks of bentonite early Tuesday evening when it lost its brakes coming down Powder River Pass.

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The Highway Patrol report states that the semi was in too high a gear for the steep grade. The patrol states it's unknown why Moffitt didn't steer onto one of the runaway truck ramps on the slope.

The rig smashed through a guardrail and dropped 150 feet into Mosier Gulch, about four miles west of the town of Buffalo.

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