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Company involved in deadly crash on I-10 had 26 crashes in AZ over last 2 years

One of the trucks suspected of being at fault in Thursday's deadly, fiery crash on I-10 was owned by a company with multiple safe driver violations and crashes.

PHOENIX — A company that owned one of the trucks suspected of being at fault in Thursday's deadly crash on Interstate 10 near Chandler Boulevard has a history of safe driving violations and crashes, according to federal records. 

That crash, in which a semi-truck hit two passenger cars, sandwiching them with another semi, killed five people when the cars burst into flame.

Department of Public Safety officials said it would likely be days until they were able to identify all the victims. 

One of the trailers had the logo for MBI, Inc on the side of it. MBI is a trucking company based out of Chicago.

The US Department of Transportation keeps safety records of trucking companies. 

According to those records, MBI has had 156 crashes involving its trucks in the past two years. The department only publishes the last two years of incidents. 

Four of those crashes involved fatalities, 43 of them involved injuries. MBI has 1,072 drivers, according to the records. 

A person who answered the phone at MBI on Friday said they had no comment. 

A closer look at the Department of Transportation records shows MBI has numerous violations for what the DOT calls "safe driving."

On eight separate occasions, the records show MBI drivers were found to be using handheld phones on Arizona roads. Those same records also show MBI had 26 crashes in Arizona over the last two years. 

The truck in front of the pileup, the one that was hit from behind, apparently belonged to a company called Logiflex, also out of Illinois. They're a much smaller company but have no recorded crashes on the DOT database. 

A DPS spokesman said Friday that, because of the severity of the crash and fire, it would likely be days before all five victims in the crash could be identified. 

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