Huntsville, Ala. – A teen motorist involved in the deadly crash last week of a school bus that nose-dived off an interstate overpass told investigators his steering system may have malfunctioned.
“He told us that he was experiencing a difficulty in steering his vehicle, and as he continued with this difficulty, it got progressively worse until he felt he lost control of the vehicle,” said Gary Van Etten, who is leading the probe for the National Transportation Safety Board.
Witnesses to the Nov. 20 crash say the car came up on a side lane next to the bus and apparently hit it. The bus swerved into a concrete railing, then plunged 30 feet off the overpass onto a street below, killing four Lee High School students and injuring dozens of others among the 40 aboard.
The bus driver, found critically injured on the Interstate 565 overpass after the crash, probably was ejected from the impact of the bus hitting the concrete railing, officials said.
The students on the bus and the driver of the car, a 17-year- old classmate, were all on their way to the district’s technical center at the time. Police said the teen has received death threats. Local officials and the NTSB are probing the crash.
Thousands of people, some of them students on crutches who were injured in the wreck, attended funerals over the holiday weekend and on Monday for the four victims: Crystalle Renee McCrary, 17; Nicole Sharika Ford, 19; Tanesha Estella Hill, 17; and Christine Collier, 16.
The bus driver and two students who were aboard the bus remain hospitalized.
