BY JONATHAN CANNON
HERALD DEMOCRAT
SHERMAN -- The National Transportation Safety Board announced that the motor coach accident that occurred in Sherman last year was caused by a tire failure, which was not the result of fact that it was retreaded.
In the NTSB meeting Tuesday, the organization's staff presented the board with its findings on the August 2008 accident that occurred on U.S. Highway 75 in Sherman at the Post Oak Creek Bridge. The bus was carrying 55 passengers when the front right tire failed causing the driver to lose control and the bus to roll off the road. Seventeen of the passengers, who were traveling to a religious festival in Carthage, Mo. from Houston, were killed.
The tire
Staffers explained to the NTSB board how it would have been easy to miss the underinflation of the tire, which caused the accident. They showed members pictures of under and properly inflated tires similar to the one that was in the bus; there was almost no visual difference.
"It definitely made me take second look at my own tires," said NTSB Chair Deborah Hersman.
To address the problem the board recommended that rules be implemented requiring drivers to use a pressure gage during their bus inspections; something board members admitted was a common sense solution but is not currently required. They also recommended that new motor coaches be equipped with tire pressure monitoring systems that alert drivers of the tires' exact pressure.
And while the retread was not cited as contributing to the accident, board members questioned staffers as to who put the retreaded tire on a steering axle, which was illegal at the time of the accident.
"We made an incredible effort to try and determine when that retread was put on the vehicle," one of the staff members responded, but they were only able to guess at when the tire was placed there.
Staffers told the board that the tire was in the facility of Motor Coach Industries -- the company that built and refurbished the bus -- at the time they were working on the bus. However, company photographs of the bus after it was refurbished showed that the tire was not on the steering axle, but could have been on a rear axle, which is permissible under current safety rules.
The safety inspection
The staff told the board that the tire was most likely rotated to the steering axle during a service prior to its safety inspection after Iguala BusMex, the company that operated the motor coach, purchased it. Staff said the inspector who performed the inspection insisted there was not a retreaded tire on the steering axle, however Hersman seemed to doubt this claim.
In line with that, the board recommended that the state of Texas exercise more oversight over the private garages licensed to perform state safety inspections. In this case, the business that performed the inspection, Five-Minute Inspections of Houston, was not equipped to properly perform the required inspection. The NTSB found items that should have caused the bus to fail its inspection that were missed. Including a "grossly contaminated brake assembly," which staff member Chris Voeglie said could only have happened over an extended period of time.
The guard rail
NTSB officials also said the guard rail (on the bridge over Post Oak Creek in Sherman) contributed to the severity of the accident. Staff member David Rayburn said higher performance railing might have prevented the coach from going off the road.
The board recommended that better guidelines be provided to bridge builders on specifications for guard rails.
The bus
In addition to factors to contributed to the actual accident, the NTSB made recommendations regarding items within the bus that might have made the accident less severe.
Current rules do not require any type of restraint system for passengers that would prevent ejection during an accident. Staff member Henry Hughes said if there had been some type of restraints, nine of the passengers killed would have likely benefitted from them. Staff members pointed to passenger restraints that have already been implemented in Europe and Australia as examples to follow.
They also named the bus' roof, which they said was too weak to protect passengers during a rollover as contributing to the severity of passenger injuries. And to the bus' overhead luggage racks, which fell during the accident injuring passengers and impeding rescue efforts.
The board recommended requiring restraints, developing standards for stronger roofs and more stable luggage racks and implementing the standards.
The driver
The NTSB also confirmed reports that the bus driver, Barrett Broussard, 53, of Houston had taken cocaine "before or during" the trip. However, they said that a well-rested, sober driver would not have been able to regain control of the bus or prevent the accident after the tire failed.
Still, the NTSB made recommendations relating to driver history. The board recommended that a database of positive alcohol and substance abuse tests of drivers and refusals be available to employers and those who certify the drivers.
The carrier
The NTSB also discussed the carrier, Iguala BusMex, which had applied to operate as a carrier shortly before the accident. The application was filled by Angel De La Torre after his bus company Angel Tours was put out of commission due to safety violations. De La Torre continued to operate Angel Tours illegally even after it was put out of commission, according drivers' logs. De La Torre's application for Iguela BusMex was pending meeting the insurance requirement.
"How can (oversight organizations) really put their foot on the neck of these rogue carriers to keep them from coming back?" Hersman asked members of the staff.
They recommended that a system be implemented that would prevent carriers from reapplying, this to avoid complying with safety standards.
The next step
Staff members suggested that criminal charges may be filed in the case, but offered no further details. Currently no criminal charges are pending, but a civil case has been filed in Houston.
The case names Broussard, De La Torre and both his tour bus companies, Henise Tire -- the company responsible for the retread -- and MCI among the defendants in the case that was brought by Victoria and John Jacobs on behalf of her minor daughter, Vivi Tran, who was involved in the accident. The trial has been set for Oct. 4, 2010, but several of the defendants were named because of their involvement in the retreading and the placement of it on the steering axle.
For many of the victims and their families, what they seek is changes, many of which were recommended by the NTSB Tuesday, to prevent future tragedies like this one.
Hersman said many of these recommendations have been on the NTSB's most wanted improvements list for some time with little or no change.
"We have not seen one iota of change done with respect to crash worthiness," she said. "The time is well past."