The unlicensed bus carrying 55 members of a Vietnamese Catholic group from Houston to Carthage, Mo., for a religious festival smashed into a guardrail and skidded off a highway early Friday near the Texas-Oklahoma state line. Twelve people died at the scene and four more died at hospitals.
One emergency call began with a female crash victim speaking in accented English over the screams and moans of other passengers. After struggling to answer the 911 operator's questions, she handed the phone to a man who had apparently arrived at the scene immediately after the crash.
"We've got people crushed underneath the bus," the man said. "The bus is smoking. It might catch fire."
A female caller told a 911 operator that there were passengers "just everywhere out here laid out on the ground. They are bloody." Another caller said: "There's people screaming for help."
Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church and two other mostly Vietnamese congregations in Houston, heading to an annual festival honoring the Virgin Mary. The Marian Days pilgrimage, which started in the late 1970s, attracts thousands of Catholics of Vietnamese descent and includes a large outdoor Mass each day, entertainment and camping at night.
By late Saturday morning, traffic was back to normal and a damaged guardrail had been replaced. Several bouquets of carnations, tulips and roses were left on an embankment amid shards of glass and burned grass.
Authorities said the vehicle's right front tire, which blew out, had been retreaded in violation of safety standards, said Debbie Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. The tread separated from the tire in a process called delamination. It is legal to retread such tires but they may not be used on the wheels that steer the bus, she said.
Authorities said Saturday they believe the 2002 model bus, a 45-foot long motor coach, was equipped with a device that could record information, similar to a black box on an airplane. If that device is found, it could help investigators learn how fast the bus was going and whether the driver hit the brakes or the accelerator at the time of the crash, Hersman said.
The driver, 52-year-old Barrett Wayne Broussard, had a commercial license, but his medical certification expired in May, according to the NTSB. Broussard was stable at a hospital. Authorities took blood samples from Broussard on Friday but do not have the results, Hersman said.
Broussard was convicted in 2001 of driving while intoxicated in Houston and sentenced to 10 days in prison and a $225 fine, according to online records from the Texas Department of Public Safety. He has also been arrested at least three other times and was sentenced to two years in prison in 1998 for violating probation.
The bus operator, Iguala BusMex Inc. of Houston, had applied in June for a federal license to operate as a charter but was still awaiting approval, according to online records. The company recently filed incorporation papers, listing the same owner and address as Angel Tours Inc., which was forced by federal regulators to take its vehicles out of interstate service June 23 after an unsatisfactory review.
The review cited the company for problems in three areas: using a driver before receiving a pre-employment result, failing to require a driver to prepare a vehicle inspection report and using a driver who wasn't medically re-examined every two years.
A May 1 review by the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration cited the company for violations including a lax drug and alcohol testing program, Hersman said. Two of five drivers did not have current medical certificates, and 27 of 28 vehicle inspections were missing, she said.
Neither entity is authorized to operate as a carrier in interstate commerce, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The bus was registered under temporary tags that were to expire Saturday, Hersman said.
A man at Angel Tours in Houston declined to comment Friday. The company's voicemail system was full Saturday and not accepting new messages, and no one answered Saturday at a listing for the company's attorney.
"We're in the middle of a very intense investigation," attorney Keena Greyling told the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper reported Saturday on its Web site. "Because of that, we really can't discuss anything further."
Vu Pham, 35, of Houston, said his brother, sister-in-law, mother and 12-year-old nephew were on the bus. His brother, whose left leg has been paralyzed since he was a boy because of polio, remained in intensive care Saturday in a Sherman hospital, he said.
"We thought it would be better for him to get on the bus because it's a far drive," Pham said. "Now he keeps saying that he should have driven himself."
It was the nation's deadliest bus crash since 2004, when 15 people were killed in a wreck in Arkansas on their way to Mississippi's casinos. 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.
Names of victims:
1. Nguyen, Khiem Thanh 06/05/27 M
2. Nguyen, Hanh Viet 07/10/48 M
3. Bui, Phu Van 06/06/32 M
4. Nguyen, Boi 04/20/24 M
5. Dang, Xuan Hoa 11/19/48 F
6. Ta, Mindy Hoa 10/22/58 F
7. Vu, Thuy Thu 06/11/81 F
8. Lam, Tuong 08/11/45 F
9. Pham, Soi 12/31/36 F
10. Tran, Catherine 10/10/48 M
11. Le, Phung 10/02/40 M
12. Phan, Hue 10/11/48 M
13. Nguyen, Vivica 09/26/78 Parkland F
14. Cao, Nhung 12/31/47 JPS F
15. Hoang, Dung Thi 03/08/37 WNJ F
16. Nguyen, Sueann 11/21/57 Methodist F
Statement from Cardinal Daniel DiNardo
"I, along with the entire Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, mourn for the victims of the bus tragedy that occurred in Sherman, Texas early this morning. We also mourn for their families and the spiritual communities from which they came," said Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, Archbishop of the archdiocese, regarding the bus crash that claimed 13 parishioners from two local parishes. "We pray for the intercession of our mother, Mary that she may grant the families peace in knowing that their loved ones are now with her Son, Jesus." The bus was part of a caravan making an annual pilgrimage in celebration of the Virgin Mary in Carthage, Missouri. The bus was transporting members of Vietnamese Martyrs and Our Lady of Lavang Parish. The Diocese of Dallas has graciously agreed to provide assistance to the victims' families. They have allowed the Red Cross to establish an assistance center at St. Patrick Church, located at 416 N. Rusk Avenue, in Denison, Texas, where shelter and support will be offered."
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