14 Vietnamese-Americans Dead in Bus Crash
This accident happened just a couple of miles down from my house in Sherman, Texas. 14 Vietnamese-Americans were killed. While at least 6 are in critical condition. Detailed story posted here. Also new coverage of the accident.
My heart goes out to the victim's family and friends.
SHERMAN, Texas - An illegally operated charter bus carrying a Vietnamese-American Catholic group on a pilgrimage to a religious festival blew a tire and skidded off a highway early Friday, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 40, authorities say.
The bus, en route from Houston to Missouri with 55 people aboard, smashed into a guardrail and tipped over along the edge of the road at about 12:45 a.m., crushing one side of the vehicle and scattering luggage, clothes, a sandal and a blood-soaked pillow across the grass and pavement.
More than a dozen victims were reported in critical condition. Ten people were taken to the hospital by helicopter.
Passenger Leha Nguyen, 45, said people were dozing off aboard the bus when she heard a noise and screaming, and opened her eyes.
"Somebody was laying on my legs. A lady next to me, she had her arm crushed up. The lady who was on my left, a man was on top of her," she said at a hospital. She said nobody had been wearing seatbelts, and people were strewn all over. A television had fallen on one person.
"I think I'm the luckiest one out of most people," she said.
Bus not licensed
Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church and two other mostly Vietnamese congregations in Houston. They were on their way to Carthage, Mo., for an annual open-air festival honoring the Virgin Mary.
The Marian Days pilgrimage, begun in the late 1970s, attracts thousands of Catholics of Vietnamese descent and includes a large outdoor Mass each day, entertainment and camping at night.
"Please pray for us," said Holly Nguyen, a 38-year-old church member who was following behind the bus in a car but did not see the wreck. She anxiously awaited word of her father, who was on the bus when it ran off the road about 65 miles north of Dallas, close to the Oklahoma line.
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, records show. Details of the review were not in the online records.
Neither entity is currently authorized to operate as a carrier in interstate commerce, said John H. Hill, administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
"We have requested law enforcement agencies to be alert for any buses being operated by Angel Tours or Iguala BusMex, since they are not authorized to operate legally," he said in a written statement. "If found on the road, we want law enforcement to immediately stop and place the vehicles out of service."
Nation's deadliest bus crash since 2004
In a Houston building with a weathered Angel Tours plywood sign, a man declined to identify himself Friday or comment to The Associated Press about the wreck.
The tragedy 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 near Dallas, 23 people were killed when a bus carrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire while in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
My heart goes out to the victim's family and friends.
SHERMAN, Texas - An illegally operated charter bus carrying a Vietnamese-American Catholic group on a pilgrimage to a religious festival blew a tire and skidded off a highway early Friday, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 40, authorities say.
The bus, en route from Houston to Missouri with 55 people aboard, smashed into a guardrail and tipped over along the edge of the road at about 12:45 a.m., crushing one side of the vehicle and scattering luggage, clothes, a sandal and a blood-soaked pillow across the grass and pavement.
More than a dozen victims were reported in critical condition. Ten people were taken to the hospital by helicopter.
Passenger Leha Nguyen, 45, said people were dozing off aboard the bus when she heard a noise and screaming, and opened her eyes.
"Somebody was laying on my legs. A lady next to me, she had her arm crushed up. The lady who was on my left, a man was on top of her," she said at a hospital. She said nobody had been wearing seatbelts, and people were strewn all over. A television had fallen on one person.
"I think I'm the luckiest one out of most people," she said.
Bus not licensed
Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church and two other mostly Vietnamese congregations in Houston. They were on their way to Carthage, Mo., for an annual open-air festival honoring the Virgin Mary.
The Marian Days pilgrimage, begun in the late 1970s, attracts thousands of Catholics of Vietnamese descent and includes a large outdoor Mass each day, entertainment and camping at night.
"Please pray for us," said Holly Nguyen, a 38-year-old church member who was following behind the bus in a car but did not see the wreck. She anxiously awaited word of her father, who was on the bus when it ran off the road about 65 miles north of Dallas, close to the Oklahoma line.
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, records show. Details of the review were not in the online records.
Neither entity is currently authorized to operate as a carrier in interstate commerce, said John H. Hill, administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
"We have requested law enforcement agencies to be alert for any buses being operated by Angel Tours or Iguala BusMex, since they are not authorized to operate legally," he said in a written statement. "If found on the road, we want law enforcement to immediately stop and place the vehicles out of service."
Nation's deadliest bus crash since 2004
In a Houston building with a weathered Angel Tours plywood sign, a man declined to identify himself Friday or comment to The Associated Press about the wreck.
The tragedy 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 near Dallas, 23 people were killed when a bus carrying nursing home residents away from Hurricane Rita caught fire while in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
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