U.S. NTSB investigators, Texas DPS officials, and U.S. DOT personnel are among those that will be involved in investigating Thursday morning’s deadly Cardinal Coach Line bus crash in Irving, Texas. The crash occurred on Highway 161 (President George Bush Turnpike) near Belt Line Road.
The charter bus was taking a group of mostly senior citizens to the Choctaw Casino in Durant, Oklahoma for a day of gambling and amusement. The victims of the deadly charter bus crash did not know that part of the package would involve gambling their lives. At least two people have died from the catastrophic crash, and 41 others received transport to the hospital. (By the way, our Texas bus accident injury attorneys note that this number seems to represent the total of all persons present on the bus at the time of the crash.)
The investigation into the deadly Cardinal Coach Line bus crash in Irving, Texas should be completed in about 12 to 18 months according to authorities. And the Texas DPS indicated that since no other vehicles were known to be involved, mechanical failure or driver error might be at fault for the deadly charter bus crash. Our Texas bus accident injury attorneys add that driver fatigue or driver medical conditions could be among the other possible causes. We note that Cardinal Coach Line had very few safety violations prior to the tragic Irving, Texas accident. These violations were relatively minor. Data we found indicated that those violations did include a driver’s failure to have medical claearance, and a driver’s failure to retain the trip log (logs generally detail hours worked and miles driven).
One man that had been on the bus with his friend thought that a tire blowout might be at fault for the tragic accident. According to a Dallas Morning News report of the deadly charter bus crash, he says he heard a crash and then the bus began careening wildly. (Source: Robert Wilonsky, The Scoop Blog, The Dallas Morning News, 4/11/13)
A report from WFAA quotes a witness as saying he heard a crashing sound like the bus ran into something, the bus started shaking, and then it rolled over. The WFAA report mentions that the Cardinal charter bus headed off the right side of the road, and ran over some “concrete divots” at the shoulder causing the driver to lose control. Then the bus headed back across the northbound lanes of Highway 161 and flipped over into the grassy median after striking the concrete highway divider barrier.
Witnesses said that the front of the bus was completely sheared off after the deadly Cardinal Coach Line bus crash, the wreckage was smoking, and people were pinned beneath the massive charter bus. Our Texas bus accident injury attorneys mention that northbound and southbound lanes of Highway 161 were shut down for hours.
The description from the WFAA report seems similar to accounts of vehicles drifting off the roadway from driver fatigue or medical conditions, and then as the driver hits rumble strips or some other awakening event, they overcorrect to cause a tragic crash. But the Cardinal bus driver is reportedly one of the patients in critical condition after the deadly Cardinal Coach Line bus crash, so our experienced Texas bus accident injury attorneys don’t know if the driver will be able to soon clarify what happened. (Source: Marjorie Owens, Marcus Moore, Matt Goodman, Jonathan Betz, and Todd Unger, wfaa.com, 4/11/13)
Continue to Part 2 to learn the amount of insurance coverage the bus line carries and what that means to your injury or wrongful death compensation claim.