■ One person died when a tour bus rolled over about 70 miles southeast of Las Vegas.
Vehicle headed to Grand Canyon West rolls over
One person died, two were in critical condition, and 40 others were hospitalized Friday after a Grand Canyon tour bus rolled over about 70 miles southeast of Las Vegas.
A bus run by a Las Vegas-based company carrying 48 people, including the driver, was headed to Grand Canyon West when, around 12:20 p.m., the bus rolled over near mile marker 5 on Diamond Bar Road in Meadview, Arizona, according to a statement from the Mohave County Sheriff ’s Office.
One person was pronounced dead at the scene, the Sheriff ’s Office said. Forty others were taken by ambulance to Kingman Regional Medical Center.
A spokeswoman for the Sheriff ’s Office said the cause of the wreck was not yet known, but a fire official who responded said speed appeared to be a factor.
No other vehicles were involved.
“It was a heavily damaged bus. He slid down the road quite a ways, so there was a lot of wreckage,” Lake Mohave Ranchos Fire District Chief Tim Bonney said. “Just to put it in perspective, on a scale of zero to 10, an eight.”
None of the passengers was thrown from the vehicle, but they were all in shock, Bonney said.
“A lot of them were saying the bus driver was driving at a high rate of speed,” he said.
The area has seen at least three tour bus crashes in recent years, two involving fatalities.
In October 2010, two passengers died and several others injured in the crash of a Las Vegas tour bus headed for the Skywalk at Grand Canyon West in northwest Arizona.
In July 2010, several people were injured after a car collided with a Grand Canyon tour bus on U.S. Highway 93 at Pearce Ferry Road, 48 miles south of Boulder City.
In January 2009, seven people were killed and nine others injured after a tour bus carrying Chinese tourists overturned 27 miles south of the Hoover Dam.
Grand Canyon West, outside the boundaries of the national park, sits on the Hualapai reservation. It’s best known for the Skywalk, a glass bridge that juts out 70 feet from the canyon walls and gives visitors a view of the Colorado River 4,000 feet below.