Editor’s note: This video contains previous coverage of other findings in this report. Additionally, this report has been edited to clarify the Texas Department of Public Safety issued the driver’s CDL, not the Texas DMV. The report states it was Texas DMV , but the agency is working to get the report corrected.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A hundreds-page long report by the National Transportation Safety Board analyzing the March 2025 crash on Interstate 35 that killed five people found the driver of the semi-truck that caused the crash was issued an “unrestricted” commercial driver license (CDL), when he was supposed to receive one that expired the year before the crash.
The crash happened on I-35 southbound near Parmer and Howard Lanes around 11:20 p.m. on March 13, 2025. Five people, including a baby and a child, died. Eleven others were hurt. Several witnesses described a semi-truck “plowing” through stopped and nearly-stopped traffic. This happened in a construction zone.
The semi-truck driver, Solomun Weldekeal-Araya, faces felony manslaughter and aggravated assault charges in connection with this and is currently out on bond. His attorney Bristol Myers said the report shows this crash was “not a crime,” rather a tragic accident.
As a non-citizen, driver was supposed to get ‘non-domiciled’ license
According to records found in the NTSB report, Weldekeal-Araya is in the U.S. a refugee. The report included a copy of his employment authorization card, a government-issued card that shows a non-citizen can legally work in the U.S., which had an expiration date of October 2022.
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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) determined when the the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) issued Weldekeal-Araya a CDL in 2021, the department should have given him a “non-domiciled CDL” that expired when his employment authorization card did. Instead, the state gave him a standard CDL that didn’t expire until 2023…