M5 crash

The 2011 M5 motorway crash was a multi-vehicle collision which happened on 4 November 2011, on the M5 motorway near Taunton in the county of Somerset in South West England. The crash, which involved multiple cars and articulated lorries, killed seven people and injured 51.

At 8.25 pm on Friday 4 November 2011, 34 vehicles were involved in an accident on the northbound carriageway of the M5 motorway near Junction 25 at Bathpool and Creech St Michael in Somerset, 4.7 miles (7.6 km) north east of Taunton. The vehicles included cars, vans and lorries, some of which erupted into a fireball. Flames rose up to 20 feet (6.1 m) high. Seven people were confimed dead, and a further 51 injured. Sixteen casualties were treated at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton and 26 at Yeovil District Hospital. A surgeon was flown by helicopter from the major trauma centre at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital to cope with the load and the types of multi-system trauma, including multiple fractures and chest, abdominal, and lung injuries. 

Fifteen fire appliances from Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service attended, travelling from stations across Somerset and Devon. By 8.27 am on 6 November the emergency services had removed the vehicles from the crash site, but both carriageways of the motorway, between Junctions 24 and 25, remained closed for repair work. The formal identification of crash fatalities had not yet taken place.

A 40-metre (130 ft) stretch of road was damaged by fuel spillage from vehicles and a 60-metre (200 ft) stretch was damaged by intense fire. Two lanes of the southbound carriageway reopened at about 5 pm on Sunday 6 November, and the motorway was fully opened in both directions at 9 pm the same day.