Washington – Poor bus maintenance and ineffective government oversight contributed to the explosion that killed 23 nursing-home residents in a rushed evacuation during Hurricane Rita, federal safety investigators said Wednesday.
The September 2005 accident near Wilmer, Texas, revealed a slew of failures by the bus company that had gone unchecked for months, the staff of the National Transportation Safety Board said during a hearing to determine the probable cause of the incident.
Bus fires occur nationwide “almost routinely” but haven’t received proper attention from the regulators, NTSB member Kitty Higgins said.
“It’s unfortunate we had to get to this point to realize there’s a significant problem,” she said.
The bus left the nursing home near Houston with 44 residents and staff during a forced evacuation as Hurricane Rita approached the region.
Poorly lubricated bearings in the bus’ right rear wheel heated up and ignited the tire, and flames spread into the cabin, which held 11 oxygen canisters for the patients. The bus was engulfed in flames within minutes early in the morning of Sept. 23, 2005. Most of the elderly passengers were too frail to escape the bus on their own.
Officials railed against Global Limo, the South Texas bus owner, for ignoring basic maintenance procedures and skirting federal requirements.
NTSB member Steven Chealander called the company’s actions “appalling.”
Former NFL player Jim Maples, the owner of Global Limo, was sentenced in January to six months in a halfway house and six months of home confinement for failing to maintain his buses before the accident.
NTSB members expressed frustration Wednesday with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the 8-year-old federal agency charged with overseeing buses.
About 5,000 people die each year because of motor coach accidents on highways, yet regulators have proved ineffective in reducing that number, NTSB members said.
