The National Transportation Safety Board updated an announcement made over the weekend that it had sent a “go-team” to Davis, Oklahoma to investigate a fatal bus crash late Friday involving a commercial charter bus owned by North Central Texas College and an 18-wheel tractor-trailer.
The mid-size shuttle bus was driven by the school’s softball coach and was carrying 15 players home from an exhibition game at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma. A press release issued Saturday morning by NTSB on launching its investigation incorrectly stated that a school bus had been involved in the crash, which killed four of the college students and seriously injured at least two others.
NTSB Board Member Robert Sumwalt, the spokesman on scene, said Monday that the truck driver was traveling at approximately 70 miles per hour when he left the northbound lane of Interstate-35, crossed a 90-foot median and struck head-on the college activity bus that was traveling in the southbound lane. No immediate brake defects have been found, Sumwalt added, not have any skidmarks, braking or evasive maneuvers by the truck driver been identified.
He noted that the truck driver continued on for another 820 feet after striking the bus and did not come to a complete stop until hitting a bank of trees.
