A maintenance crew had slowed down traffic on a California highway through the night, and the work had gone on for hours without problems. Then a tour bus returning to Los Angeles from a casino trip slammed into the back of a semi-truck. Passengers who were asleep on the bus woke up to loud screams and the sound of crushing metal.
The gambling jaunt ended in one of the deadliest wrecks in California history with 13 people killed and 31 injured.
Authorities said the bus was going much faster than the truck, causing it to plow about 4.6m into the truck on Interstate 10 just north of the desert resort town of Palm Springs.
Photo: Reuters
“You can see it was a substantial impact,” California Highway Patrol (CHP) Border Division Chief Jim Abele said.
It was not known if alcohol, drugs or fatigue played a role in the crash, but the bus was inspected in April and had no mechanical issues, Abele said.
The bus driver was killed, while the truck driver received minor injuries.
The bus was coming from Red Earth Casino in the desert town of Thermal and was about 56km into its 271km trip back to Los Angeles.
CHP officers had been slowing traffic to allow utility workers to string wires across the freeway, Abele said.
Passengers told officials that most people were asleep when the crash occurred shortly after 5am.
Abele said it appeared the 1996 bus did not have seat belts and likely did not have data recorder that would reveal how fast the bus was traveling and whether the driver braked before impact.
“I was awakened by the sounds of people screaming for help,” passenger Ana Car, 61, told the Los Angeles Times. “I noticed a heavyset woman lying in the center aisle to my right yelling, ‘My legs! My legs!’”
Before April, the bus also was inspected last year and in 2014, the CHP said.
US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records show it had no crashes in the past two years and had a satisfactory safety rating.
The front of the bus crumpled into the semi-truck’s trailer and debris was scattered across the key route through Southern California.
Firefighters used ladders to climb into the bus’ windows to remove bodies, and tow trucks lifted the trailer to make it easier to reach the bus, whose front end was demolished.
Fourteen people were sent to Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, the area’s only trauma center. Four remained in critical condition on Sunday evening, two were transferred to other hospitals for continuing treatment and the rest were treated and released, hospital officials said.
Many suffered facial injuries, a telltale sign they were not wearing seat belts, said Ricard Townsend, a trauma surgeon.
“It seemed as though most of the victims were unrestrained and were therefore flown through the air and ended up sustaining facial trauma,” he said.
Two other hospitals received patients with minor injuries.
The tour bus company, USA Holiday, has one vehicle and one driver, according to federal regulators. A call to the company was not immediately returned.
The company says on social media that it has more than 25 years of experience traveling to casinos in Southern California. It posts about quick turnaround trips leaving the Los Angeles area to casinos in the Southern California desert area and Las Vegas.
The US National Transportation Safety Board is sending a team to California to investigate.
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