Oct. 27--The tractor-trailer crash that scattered beef across the Mass Pike yesterday morning is not the first time Alan Stearn of City Packing Co. has been left asking: Where's the beef?

Stearn, president of the Newmarket Square meat packer, has lost three shipments of beef from J.W. Treuth & Sons in Baltimore, to tractor-trailer crashes in the past several years.

"It's pretty sad," Stearn said. "It's just heartbreaking for Treuth, the trucker and me. But there's nothing you can do about it."

Stearn said he was driving to work from Westboro when he passed the accident scene at the Weston toll plaza at about 4:30 a.m. But he did not see the meat truck because it was blocked by another tractor-trailer.

After seeing the accident scene on TV, Stearn said he phoned his competitor and learned the overturned truck contained about 38,000 pounds of federally inspected beef headed for his door.

"Is that amazing or what," said Treuth & Sons President Vernon Treuth. "It's an unbelievable coincidence."

The previous accidents took place on Interstate 695 in Maryland and on Interstate 495, Treuth and Stearn said.

State health officials condemned the beef and sent it to the Millbury incinerator, a spokeswoman said. Treuth valued the load at $50,000.

While state police investigate the crash, Stearn said it takes a skilled driver to transport beef because the weighty product, suspended from hooks inside the refrigerated trailer, can throw off the truck's momentum.

"You have someone who cuts him off, they have to jam the brakes and the momentum will shift," Stearn said. "He's a goner because once that meat shifts one way, it doesn't come back."

Kenneth Weaver, 59, of Glenmoore, Pa., was driving the tractor-trailer carrying the beef when he made contact with another tractor-trailer while they were approaching the toll plaza at 2:30 a.m., state police said.

Police said the crash started a chain reaction that struck a 1999 Toyota Corolla and another tractor-trailer paying its toll.

Truck owner Ron Harding of Morgantown, Pa., described Weaver as a "good driver" and said his insurance company will handle any losses.

State police waved drivers through the tolls for several hours during the morning commute while crews cleared the three tractor-trailers, car and beef from the scene.

State transportation officials hope to recover the lost toll revenues in an insurance claim.

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