By Michael Grabell
The Dallas Morning News (Texas)
Copyright 2006 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a two-day public hearing in August on the bus fire outside Dallas that killed 23 nursing home patients fleeing Hurricane Rita.
During the hearing, accident investigators will reveal the first details of their nearly yearlong investigation into how flames from the bus’s right rear wheel spread to the passenger cabin, causing medical oxygen bottles to burst and killing more than half the patients onboard, many of them unable to walk.
The meeting, planned for Aug. 8 and 9 in Washington, D.C., will be the first public hearing on bus safety in more than six years.
Such hearings have generally been reserved for major plane disasters, such as the 2001 crash of an American Airlines flight, which killed 265 people in New York. The Hurricane Rita bus fire was the deadliest U.S. transportation accident since that crash.
“Last September, 23 frail, elderly nursing home residents perished when the bus taking them out of harm’s way caught fire,” hearing chairwoman Kitty Higgins said in a written statement. “We can’t change what happened, but we will find out what caused this tragic loss of life.”
In addition to focusing on the fire’s cause, board members will discuss transporting people with special needs, bus evacuations, fire detection and suppression, and government oversight of bus companies and tour brokers, the NTSB said.
The Dallas Morning News reported in the fall that although the South Texas company that operated the bus had a driver-safety rating in the bottom 3 percent of all bus and truck operators and the company’s owners had fallen into bankruptcy, the federal safety-tracking system didn’t flag the firm for a full-scale audit.
Jim Maples, who owned the company, Global Limo, has been indicted on federal charges of willfully failing to maintain his buses and falsifying driver logbooks, which are intended to ensure that drivers don’t fall asleep at the wheel. His trial is scheduled for September.
The bus fire has also prompted numerous lawsuits. In May, the bus company, the Chicago-based travel broker and the Corsicana repair shop that changed the tire two hours before the fire agreed to tender the “maximum primary coverage” of their insurance policies — $12 million — to the court to distribute to the victims and their families.
A mediator has evaluated the cases and decided how to divide the settlement money.
Meanwhile, the case is still pending against the bus manufacturer, Motor Coach Industries, and the owner of the Brighton Gardens of Bellaire nursing home, Sunrise Senior Living. The earliest the case could go to trial is September 2007, according to a court order signed July 10.
“The victims of the crash and their families are very interested in the hearings and will have representatives there,” said attorney Randy Sorrels, who represents the families of two sisters who died in the fire. “It’s our hope that more information comes out in public to help the families understand what happened on that day.”
While the NTSB hasn’t ruled on an official cause, investigators have said that poorly maintained wheel bearings led to a heat buildup that started the fire.
Crime scene photographs, obtained by The News, showed that the bearings were so worn that some had fused together and others had broken off. The photos also appeared to show that some oxygen bottles used by patients were stored haphazardly.
Other records revealed that the bus — a 1998 Motor Coach Industries Renaissance — had crisscrossed the country all summer long without an inspection by federal or state officials, even though passengers had complained about its dire condition.
The News also reported in April that Global Limo maintenance files showed that the company had turned down mechanics’ recommendations for repairs and never filled out the required daily inspection forms.
The NTSB will use information presented at the hearing to make safety recommendations to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which oversees bus and truck safety.