California school bus crash: Looking for answers in tragedy

Investigators are looking for what caused a FedEx truck to hit a bus full of high school students head-on. The accident raises questions about seat belts on buses and big trucks towing multiple trailers.

|
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
Sergio Parra, a 10th grader at Orland High School, places a memorial remembering the victims of a fiery crash between a tour bus and a FedEx truck in Orland, Calif. Orland High is across the street from a Red Cross shelter set up to handle some of survivors of the accident.

Transportation safety officials say it could be weeks before they know the cause of the collision between a FedEx tractor-trailer and a bus that took 10 lives, half of them Los Angeles-area high school students on their way to visit the college in northern California where they hoped to continue their education.

Even then, why the FedEx truck – which was hauling two heavy trailers – crossed a grassy median as it traveled south along I-5, slamming head-on into the bus and bursting into flames, may remain unclear.

"We don't know whether the FedEx driver had fallen asleep, whether he experienced a mechanical failure with his vehicle or whether there was a separate collision on the southbound side that caused him to lose control," said Lieutenant Scott Fredrick, lead investigator for the California Highway Patrol.

Witnesses report seeing the truck clip an automobile before careening across the median. One eye witness said the truck already was in flames before it smashed into the bus, which was headed north along California’s main north-south interstate highway midway between Sacramento and the Oregon border.

"It was in flames as it came through the median," Bonnie Duran told NBC News. "It was already in flames. It wasn’t coming from the front engine, it was more from behind the cab."

Both vehicles had devices that could shed light on the accident.

“There’s an electronic module on the bus that could tell us information about the speed, any hard braking that might have happened,” National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator Mark Rosekind told NBC. However, he added, any similar technology on the truck was most likely destroyed in the intense fire that raged through both vehicles.

"The big rig and the bus were both engulfed in flames,” said California Highway Patrol spokeswoman Tracy Hoover. “You are talking about two vehicles that are destroyed. There is hardly anything left of the truck.”

Those killed include the drivers of both vehicles and three high school chaperones, including a couple who had recently become engaged. The twin sister of one of the five students killed was riding on another bus headed toward Humboldt State University in redwood country on the northern California coast. More than 30 other passengers were injured, some of them seriously.

The trip from southern California was part of a program to help low-income and first-generation college hopefuls.

This week’s accident raises questions in two controversial areas:

Allowing double- and even triple-trailer tractors onto roads and highways. Such vehicles are harder to maneuver, especially in situations where stopping quickly can prevent deadly accidents.

And mandating the retrofitting of buses used by schools and tour operators with seat belts and other safety devices.

“While preventing accidents is always the goal, saving lives and reducing injuries in the event of an accident is also critical,” the NTSB states in its “most wanted” list for 2014. “Increasing the use of available occupant protection systems and improving crashworthiness to preserve survivable space can mean the difference between life and death.”

As the investigation continues, says the NTSB’s Mr. Rosekind, “The most important thing we can do is issue recommendations so that these kinds of accidents don't happen again.”

This report includes material from Reuters.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to California school bus crash: Looking for answers in tragedy
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0412/California-school-bus-crash-Looking-for-answers-in-tragedy
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe