8 dead, dozens hurt in South Texas bus crash
LAREDO — A charter bus headed to a casino crashed in far South Texas on Saturday, killing eight people and injuring about 40 in a one-vehicle rollover, officials said.
Webb County spokesman Larry Sanchez said seven people died at the scene on U.S. Highway 83 north of Laredo. An eighth person died later at a hospital.
Webb County Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ricardo Rangel said the bus, identified as belonging to OGA Charters, originated in the Rio Grande Valley and was headed to a casino in Eagle Pass, about 125 miles northwest of Laredo.
The bus company is based in San Juan in Hidalgo County. There was no answer at the bus company and no one immediately responded to a message left there.
The fire department described it as a rollover involving just one vehicle. Firefighters received the call late Saturday morning. By late afternoon, the highway at the scene remained closed.
The crash is one of the dead- liest bus accidents in Texas in the past several years, including one in January 2015 when two prison guards and eight inmates were killed after their prison bus struck a piece of displaced high- way guardrail west of Odessa. The bus fell about 20 feet before striking a Union Pacific freight train that happened to be passing beneath the highway.
Seventeen passengers died in 2008 near Sherman when their bus plunged over a highway bridge on their way to a religious retreat in Missouri. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the crash was caused when a retreaded tire on the right front axle was punctured by an unknown object.
Although the retread itself wasn’t the cause, the panel noted that the tire was affixed to the front axle illegally, the bus company didn’t have the authority to leave Texas after failing an inspection three months earlier, and the company that inspected the bus wasn’t equipped to judge whether it was roadworthy.
The owner of the Houston bus company was charged with making false statements but avoided prison in 2014 after a federal judge sentenced him to three years of probation in a plea agreement.