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Aug 10, 2008 4:51 pm US/Central
Sherman Bus Crash Companies Ordered Off Roads
SHERMAN (AP) ―
The Federal Motor Safety Administration has declared that companies linked to the bus involved in a crash that killed 17 people pose an "imminent hazard" and must cease all commercial operations.
The order was issued to Angel Tours, Inc., Iguala Busmex, Inc. and each of its officers.
Click here to read the order given to Angel Tours, Inc. (.pdf file) Click here to read the order given to Busmex, Inc. (.pdf file)A second order issued to Angel De La Torre, president and owner of both companies, finds that his "activities in connection with motor carrier operations pose an 'imminent hazard' to the public."
Iguala BusMex Inc. owns the bus that smashed into a guardrail and skidded off a highway early Friday morning near Sherman, killing 12 passengers at the scene. Five more died later at area hospitals. The passengers, most of them from three Vietnamese Catholic congregations in Houston, were traveling to Missouri for an annual religious festival.
Inspectors identified another charter bus registered to Iguala BusMex Inc. operating in Missouri and pulled it out of service, National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Debbie Hersman said.
Authorities released the driving record for the bus driver, 52-year-old Barrett Wayne Broussard. Since 2001, he has been cited by police three times -- once for driving while intoxicated and twice for speeding.
Hersman said Broussard, who was in critical condition Sunday, was cited by bus inspectors twice in the last year for logbook violations and pulled off duty both times.
"We will be checking to see if this driver was working part-time for someone else," Hersman said. "As you know one of his speeding tickets was for when he was working for another company."
Robert Accetta, the NTSB member leading the investigation, said officials were still in a fact-finding phase. An investigator will travel to Houston with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to find information about Iguala BusMex and Angel Tours Inc., which are owned by the same person.
Iguala BusMex applied in June for a federal license to operate as a charter but was still awaiting approval, according to online records. Angel Tours was forced by federal regulators to take its vehicles out of interstate service June 23 after an unsatisfactory review.
Neither entity is authorized to operate as a carrier in interstate commerce, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
Angel Tours' voicemail system was full Sunday and not accepting new messages.
Inspectors were also looking at the mechanics of the wrecked bus and examining its interior damage, Accetta said. The damage could provide a clue to victims' injuries.
Lt. Bob Fair of the Sherman Police Department said his department is finishing inspections of the bus. He declined to comment on whether any criminal charges would be filed.
Authorities said the vehicle's right front tire, which blew out, had been retreaded in violation of safety standards. The bus skidded about 130 feet before striking a guardrail. It then traveled nearly 120 feet before coming to rest down an embankment near a creek.
Investigators were at the accident site Sunday near the Texas-Oklahoma border, taking measurements and inspecting debris. Dave Rayburn, an NTSB senior investigator, measured the guardrail and the spot where the charter's front right tire blew out. Orange spray paint marked parts of the far right lane of the highway.
A woman's dress shoe and a white tennis shoe lay in the grass beside the railing. Damaged piece of guardrail were scattered about in a nearby creek and on the road's embankment amid charred grass and broken glass. Several bouquets of flowers were also there.
Peter Tran, a close friend of Thuong Tath, who suffered a cracked neck bone and lost his wife during the accident, said he was saddened to find remnants of the group's crash. He said he saw packets of longan, a traditional Vietnamese fruit, and yellow sweet rice. He said he also found a jug of thit kho, or roasted pork, and moved it to a place he hoped emergency crews would not find.
"It's been really, really sad," Tran said. "It's a terrible time. I cried, but everyone cries."
The pastor of a Vietnamese church in Houston that lost parishioners in the crash told churchgoers Sunday that they must accept the tragedy as a "door that God has opened."
"Do not fight the will of God," the Rev. Vu Thanh said. "(People must) live in faith of God."
At the Vietnamese Martyr Church, portraits of five victims who were regular attendees were surrounded by flowers at the foot of the pulpit. Candles flickered before them during Sunday services.
The church is holding prayer services for friends and relatives of the crash victims and raising money for costs associated with the crash.
Emergency calls released Saturday filled in details about the aftermath of the crash, with many callers mistaking the bus for an 18-wheeler truck in the early morning darkness. Several passengers were crushed by the bus, screaming for help as paramedics arrived.
Grayson County officials and Sherman police on Saturday released the names and ages of the 11 women and six men who died in the crash. The youngest was Thuy Thu Vu, 27, and the oldest was 89-year-old Cham T. Nguyen, who died at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth.
The crash in Sherman is among the nation's deadliest. In 2005, 23 people were killed near Dallas when a bus carrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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