Deadly bus-train wreck puts crossing under scrutiny
JACKSON, Mississippi — The site of a train-tour bus crash that killed four people in Mississippi has a troubling history of collisions, including two this year, local and U.S. federal officials said Wednesday.
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said the crossing in Biloxi has a hump that has caused tractor-trailers to bottom out, and the federal agency is looking into whether the steep grade played a role in the crash Tuesday. The crossing has had at least 17 collisions involving vehicles and trains since 1976.
“It sounds like a lot,” Sumwalt noted, saying investigators would compare the crossing with other similar ones.
On Tuesday, a charter bus carrying dozens of tourists to Mississippi casinos became stuck on the railroad tracks for about five minutes before a freight train barrelled into it, sending frantic passengers in all directions, witnesses said. About 40 people were hurt.
The cause of the crash is under investigation. Sumwalt said the agency’s team would look into how long the bus was stuck, the history of the motor coach company and its driver, and whether the train’s two-man crew could have done anything differently.
Some of the tourists from Texas were getting off the bus when the crash occurred, said Mark Robinson, a Biloxi native who saw the crash.