FDNY and van drivers involved in fatal Gravesend chain-reaction crash.
Seconds from Home
An FDNY driver and a commercial van driver were involved in a fatal chain-reaction crash at Avenue S and West 11th Street in Brooklyn on March 10, 2026, killing Access-A-Ride passenger Placido D'Andrea, 78, as he and his wife were nearly home, neighbors said.
Location reported in Open Data.
What We Know
At Avenue S and West 11th Street, reports disagree over which driver first hit the other and how the later impacts unfolded. D'Andrea was returning home with his wife, neighbors told the Daily News, and his family later said it planned legal action while the FDNY investigation continued.
Accounts differ on the crash sequence.
The city record gives the collision time as 6:44 p.m. and records one person killed and 12 injured. Early reports described 11 injured or at least 10.
The Daily News, citing police, reported that a northbound commercial van driver struck the eastbound FDNY truck around 6:45 p.m. CBS's description of video said the FDNY truck struck the van. Later accounts also differ: the Daily News and one CBS report say the truck hit the Access-A-Ride vehicle, which then hit a Lexus; another CBS report says the truck hit both the Access-A-Ride vehicle and the Lexus.
The Daily News described the Access-A-Ride vehicle as a bus; CBS's March 11 victim-identification report called it a van.
The couple were close to home in Gravesend.
The crash happened at Avenue S and West 11th Street in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Residents told CBS that D'Andrea and his wife lived half a block away and were returning from medical treatment she was receiving.
Neighbors remembered D'Andrea as a familiar presence.
D'Andrea, known as Butch, was a retired, kind and upbeat neighbor who often sat on his porch with his wife and greeted people, neighbors told Firehouse. They said he leaves two sons, a daughter and a grandchild.
His daughter, Laurie Tesauro, told CBS that her parents were about to celebrate 54 years of marriage. His wife was also a passenger in the Access-A-Ride vehicle and was released from the hospital after more than a week.
Accounts of right of way conflict.
The official record lists traffic-control disregard as a contributing factor for the eastbound FDNY vehicle. A law enforcement source told the Daily News that the commercial van driver failed to yield. Frontier HVAC owner Michael Liu said his driver had a green light, the FDNY driver had a red light, and the fire truck was moving very fast.
The family's attorney told CBS he was investigating whether the van driver failed to yield, whether the FDNY driver proceeded through a red light with due care, and how long the truck's lights and sirens had been on. These remain attributed claims and questions, not findings of liability.
The family planned legal action as the FDNY investigation continued.
The family said it planned legal action. The FDNY said Tower Ladder 149 was relocating to cover another fire company and told CBS on March 19 that its internal investigation was continuing. CBS reported on March 11 that no arrests had been made.