Tour bus, semi-truck crash in California; 13 killed, 31 injured

DESERT HOT SPRINGS, Calif. — Thirteen people died and 31 others were injured, some critically, Sunday morning when a tour bus collided with a big-rig truck on a highway in Southern California, officials said.

The front of the passenger bus crumpled into the semi’s trailer after the wreck shortly after 5:00 a.m. on Interstate 10 outside the desert resort town of Palm Springs, about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Responders used t ow trucks to lift the trailer to make it easier to reach the bus, whose front end was demolished.

The cause of the crash is not yet known. The bus may have been coming from Red Earth Casino, about 25 miles southeast of Palm Springs, the California Highway Patrol said. CHP Officer Stephanie Hamilton said the driver was one of the owners of the tour bus company, USA Holiday, based in the city of Alhambra, near Los Angeles.

The company has one vehicle and one driver, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Records on the agency’s website show it had no crashes and one inspection in the two years before Oct. 22 and had a satisfactory safety rating.

A phone message left for the company was not immediately returned. A Facebook message from USA Holiday said it did not have much information about the crash.

The company says on social media that it has more than 25 years of experience in traveling to casinos in Southern California. It posts about trips leaving the Los Angeles area to casinos around the Coachella Valley and Las Vegas.

The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a team to California to investigate the crash, board spokesman Eric Weiss said.

PAUL BUCK/EPA Workers cut debris from a tour bus that collided with a semitrailer on Sunday morning.