A 65-year-old Warrenton man is dead and 13 Oregon National Guard members were injured after a westbound pickup truck crossed into oncoming traffic on U.S. Highway 30 near milepost 85, setting off a four-vehicle chain reaction that state police are calling a mass casualty incident. The crash happened shortly before 9 p.m. on September 12, 2026, in Clatsop County, and left one driver dead at the scene.
According to OPB, a total of 17 people across four vehicles were involved in the collision. Investigators told KING 5 that Markham Marshall Stangland was driving a Ford Ranger pickup westbound when he crossed into the eastbound lane, sideswiped a Ram 1500, struck a National Guard Ford Transit van, and was then struck himself by a trailing eastbound Ford F-100. Stangland, identified by The Oregonian/OregonLive as a 65-year-old Warrenton resident, died at the scene, and police say he crossed the center line for reasons that remain unknown.
The Oregonian/OregonLive's reporting names the other drivers involved: Jaden Vinay Govindan, a 25-year-old Aloha resident driving the black pickup that was sideswiped, suffered minor injuries and was taken to the hospital. Gregory Louis Wavra, a 29-year-old Longview resident driving the trailing pickup that struck both Stangland and the van, suffered minor injuries. Haiden Cunningham, a 21-year-old Milwaukie resident who was driving the Transit van, suffered serious injuries and was also hospitalized.
Guardsmen Were Headed Home From Coastal Training
The 13 injured Oregon National Guard members were returning from a training exercise at Camp Rilea Armed Forces Training Center in Warrenton and were headed toward Clackamas County when the crash occurred, per the same OPB account. Camp Rilea is a 2,000-acre installation that the Oregon Military Department has operated in Clatsop County since 1927, serving as the state's primary regional training site and North Coast emergency operations base.
Lt. Col. Stephen Bomar said three Guard members remained hospitalized as of Monday. “This was a horrible accident resulting in an individual's death and multiple injuries to all involved to include 13 Oregon National Guard members,” Bomar said, according to the Oregonian/OregonLive's reporting. Investigators also determined that Stangland was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the collision, the outlet's report notes.
A Corridor With a Deadly Recent History
The September 12 crash adds to a troubling recent stretch on the same highway. Less than a month earlier, on August 18, 2026, state police responded to a fatal chain-reaction crash on Highway 30 near milepost 80 — about five miles east of this latest wreck — in which a rear-end collision pushed a stopped sedan into oncoming traffic and killed an 86-year-old Astoria man, as The Daily Astorian reported. Hoodline covered that crash in a piece titled Astoria Man, 86, Killed in Highway 30 Crash Near Knappa.
Roughly five miles west of the September 12 site, an August 1 crash saw a motorcyclist cross into oncoming traffic while attempting to pass in a no-passing zone, colliding head-on with a Ford Transit van, according to a report attributed to Oregon State Police. Historical safety data compiled by the Oregon Department of Transportation and cited by The Astorian ranked Highway 30 as the second-deadliest roadway in Clatsop County behind Highway 101, tallying 21 traffic deaths across 19 separate crashes over a multi-year tracking period.
Reconstruction Unit Still Investigating
Major fatal crash investigations on Oregon highways fall to the Oregon State Police Collision Reconstruction Unit, whose ACTAR-accredited reconstructionists use small unmanned aircraft systems and electronic measurement tools to map complex crash sites, the Daily Astorian's report explains. Such reconstructions can take weeks to determine contributing factors, and investigators have not yet said why Stangland crossed the center line or whether any medical issue played a role.
Public obituary records reviewed by The Bend Bulletin show Stangland had deep roots in Clatsop County, with family who lived and worked in local coastal industries in Astoria and Seaside across multiple generations. As the investigation continues, the crash marks yet another entry in a pattern of severe head-on and chain-reaction collisions along the two-lane coastal route that residents and Guard families alike rely on for daily travel.
