A charter bus crashed in South Texas on Saturday morning, leaving eight people dead and 44 injured, officials told The Associated Press.
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Forty-four others were transported to area hospitals, including the driver, said Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Conrad Hein said.
Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina said at a mid-afternoon news conference that a ninth person had died at Laredo Medical Center.
Authorities said the bus was carrying about 50 passengers on its way from the Rio Grande Valley to the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel in Eagle Pass – about 125 miles northwest of Laredo.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators will look at the operations of the charter bus company and have requested inspection and maintenance records for the bus.
“The bus did turn on its side and several people were ejected or came out of the vehicle”, she said. The name of the bus driver has not been released.
The NTSB is investigating the crash, which happened on northbound Highway 83 in Webb County near the Mexican border, at around 11:25 a.m. local time (12:25 p.m. ET) Saturday.
Earlier this month, a Dallas County jury awarded almost $11 million to relatives of two passengers who died following a 2013 casino tour bus crash. He said the bus was a 1998 model. A Texas DPS trooper said the road was wet from rain, but it hasn’t been determined if that played a role in the driver losing control.
Sgt. Johnny Hernandez did not release the name of the driver and said Sunday that investigators are still searching for a cause of the crash.
Federal online records show OGA Charters, based in San Juan, Texas, has two buses. A message left at the bus company Saturday was not immediately returned.
Regulators ordered OGA Charters to sideline the bus in May 2015 because of brake problems and again in August of previous year when they were getting worse, according to the records.
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OGA Charters, the company that operated the bus, was given a satisfactory safety rating in May 2014. Records noted that the firm had reported no crashes in the past two years before Saturday.
