Investigators sift through evidence in fatal tour bus crash
Passengers hospitalized in Las Vegas after crash near Hoover Dam kills 7
By Mary Manning
Published Sat, Jan 31, 2009 (1:46 p.m.)
Updated 3 hours, 55 minutes ago
Federal and state investigators began piecing together clues Saturday that could help them determine what caused a tour bus to crash south of the Hoover Dam on Friday, killing seven Chinese tourists.
National Transportation Safety Board Senior Highway Investigator Pete Kotowski met Saturday with officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety in Phoenix. Kotowski is part of a six-member team from the federal agency that will examine evidence in the crash, which left nine people injured.
It could take months for investigators to determine the cause of the crash.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety sent its Vehicular Crimes and Reconstruction Unit to the scene of the crash Friday.
The 24-passenger 2007 Chevrolet Starcraft bus with 16 people on board veered off northbound U.S. 93 about 27 miles south of the Hoover Dam at about 3:06 p.m. Las Vegas time. The driver then overcorrected and crossed the median, said Lt. James Warriner of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The bus then tipped over onto its right side across the two southbound lanes of the four-lane divided highway.
Six people ejected from the bus died at the scene, Warriner said. A seventh person, a man in his 40s, died at University Medical Center about 5:30 p.m. Friday, said UMC spokesman Rick Plummer.
Portions of the highway were shut down until 3:30 a.m. Saturday until the wreckage was cleared, Warriner said. The bus has been impounded and secured at an Arizona Department of Transportation storage yard.
State of Arizona and federal authorities are coordinating efforts to identify all of the passengers through the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, Warriner said. The phone number of the consulate is (213) 388-2566.
No passengers’ names will be released until all of the families of the victims have been contacted, Warriner said.
Law enforcement responding to the crash scene included the Arizona Highway Patrol, the National Park Service and the Golden Valley Fire Department. The Nevada Highway Patrol assisted Arizona authorities by providing translation services.
Five patients remained at University Medical Center on Saturday, including an 8-year-old boy and the tour bus driver, Plummer said. The boy was taken to UMC’s Pediatric Emergency Room, where he was in serious condition Saturday, Plummer said.
The other victims taken to UMC included a 61-year-old man in fair condition, a 48-year-old man in critical condition, a 35-year-old woman in serious condition and another woman whose condition wasn’t available Saturday.
An 18-year-old woman and a 57-year-old man were upgraded from critical to serious condition Saturday at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Ashlee Seymour said. Three patients were taken to Kingman Regional Medical Center in Arizona, including a 41-year-old woman listed in fair condition.
Dean Nyhart, commander for the northern division of the Arizona Highway Patrol, said investigators will fingerprint the crash victims and compare physical features with photographs found in passports. Many of the victims had facial cuts and bruises.
The bus company, DW Tour & Charter of San Gabriel, Calif., was certified by the California Public Utilities Commission on July 8, 2008. The company was cited on Oct. 27, 2008, along with 18 other transportation companies, and fined. No further details were available about the citation.
Federal agency databases revealed that DW Tour & Charter had not been involved in any other accidents.
No one from the company responded on Saturday to a call or e-mail.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jan/31/investigators-sift-though-evidence-fatal-tour-bus-/
Cause Sought For Fatal Bus Crash
POSTED: 5:22 pm MST January 30, 2009
UPDATED: 5:17 pm MST January 31, 2009
DOLAN SPRINGS, Ariz. — Investigators probing a deadly tour bus crash on a rural Arizona highway leading to Hoover Dam said Saturday that they likely will have some results of the bus search next week that may point to what caused the crash.
The full investigation, which includes involvement by the National Transportation Safety Board, may take up to a month, Arizona Department of Public Safety Sgt. Danny Hannigan said.
“Our focus now is really trying to make notifications of next of kin and identification,” he said.
Seven Chinese tourists were killed in the crash Friday afternoon on a straight stretch of U.S. 93, about 70 miles southeast of Las Vegas, but Hannigan said only families of two of the victims have been notified.
Six of the fatalities were confirmed on scene. A seventh person died at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, and 10 others were injured. The tourists left Las Vegas early Friday for a trip to the Grand Canyon and were returning when the bus veered right and then left across the median, rolling at least once before resting across the southbound lanes of the highway.
DPS spokesman Lt. James Warriner said the bus was taken to a state Department of Transportation yard in Kingman where investigators will scour it over the next week in search of clues.
“The goal is to get at the exact cause of the collision,” he said. “Was it mechanical failure? Was it driver error? All that will come with looking at the vehicle and conducting interviews.”
In a news release Saturday afternoon, DPS said it would have no further information on the crash that Warriner said occurred on a “nice, clear day,” until Monday.
Tourists on the bus were Chinese nationals who had flown from Shanghai to San Francisco and had most recently been in Las Vegas, according to DPS.
All but one of the victims killed are believed to have been ejected from the bus. The dead were taken to the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office in Las Vegas to be identified.
According to DPS, the bus belonged to D.W. Tours out of San Gabriel, Calif., which didn’t respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Hospital spokesman Rick Plummer said five people remained hospitalized at University Medical Center on Saturday, including the driver, a 48-year-old man in serious condition.
The others were: a 35-year-old woman whose condition went from serious to critical, a 61-year-old male whose condition was upgraded from critical to serious, an 8-year-old boy whose condition went from serious to fair and a woman estimated to be in her 40s who is in critical condition.
Plummer said the victims’ injuries ranged from spinal and serious head injuries to bone fractures. The 35-year-old woman underwent surgery and was in the trauma intensive care unit Saturday, he said.
“It ran the whole gamut of injuries,” he said.
John Fildes, director of the trauma center at UMC, said some of the patients have been able to speak.
“They’re mostly concerned with their friends and families,” he said. “Some of them lost friends or family members.”
Ryan Kennedy, a spokesman for Kingman Regional Medical Center, said Saturday that two of the five victims taken to the hospital were discharged.
Two others — an 18-year-old woman in serious condition and a 57-year-old man in serious condition — were transferred to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, according to hospital spokeswoman Ashlee Seymour.
A 41-year-old woman who was in fair condition at the Kingman hospital was visited by family and friends Saturday and was expected to stay overnight to recover from surgery, Kennedy said.
Hospital staff pitched in for cab fare for the discharged couple so that they could travel to University Medical Center, where their 8-year-old son was taken after the crash, he said.
“We’re glad they were well enough to be with their child,” Kennedy said.
http://www.kpho.com/news/18607967/detail.html
