An ambulance overturned in a crash near Gatwick Airport on 27 June, blocking the M23 northbound at Junction 11 in Crawley for hours. Sussex Police said the crash involved a private ambulance and a Mercedes SUV at Pease Pottage, and the road reopened as normal by 12pm.
The crash happened at 7.30am, and Sussex Police said the ambulance rolled onto its roof after the collision. A car caught fire after the crash, and traffic queued and moved slowly near Gatwick Airport while the northbound route stayed blocked.
Sussex Police at Junction 11
Sussex Police said no one was seriously injured. It also said London Ambulance Service treats three after Ealing Broadway collision in a separate incident, while in this crash there was not a patient in the ambulance at the time. That detail left the overturned vehicle as the main source of concern on the road, rather than a casualty transfer.
By 12pm, the road had reopened as normal, ending several hours of disruption on a route that serves Crawley and the area around Gatwick Airport. Drivers caught in the queue had to wait for the northbound blockage to clear before traffic could move normally again.
Brighton Mercedes SUV
The force asked anyone who witnessed a grey Mercedes SUV being driven from Brighton ahead of the crash to contact collision@ and quote 336 of 27/06. That appeal places the timeline before the collision itself, with the vehicle’s route and movement now the focus of the inquiry.
The unanswered point is what happened between the SUV being seen from Brighton and the moment the ambulance overturned at Pease Pottage. Sussex Police has already given drivers one practical change: the M23 is open again, but anyone with information on the grey Mercedes SUV can still feed it into the collision reference.
