The Mississippi Highway Patrol reported that early Saturday morning, the passenger bus on Interstate 20 in Warren County went off the road and overturned.
A passenger bus from Atlanta to Dallas crashed in Mississippi early Saturday morning, killing seven people, including a 6- and 16-year-old, and injuring 36 more.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol arrived on the scene at 12:40 a.m. and reported that the bus was heading west when it veered off the road and overturned on Interstate 20 in Warren County.
According to a news release from the agency, no other vehicles were involved in the collision. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated that the bus had “a tire failure” while traveling on the interstate, though it is currently unclear what caused the collision.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol reported that one passenger passed away in a nearby hospital and six passengers were declared dead at the scene. According to the Warren County Coroner’s office, two siblings, a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, were among the seven victims, all of whom were from Guatemala.
The victims’ identities have not been made public until their next of kin have been notified.
Hospitals received all 36 of the bus’s survivors “with unknown injuries,” according to a statement released by the highway patrol on Saturday evening.
At first, the agency reported 37 injuries.
According to the manifest, there were forty-one passengers. The statement claims that two drivers who were also on board were not included in the document.
Regiomontanos Autobuses is the registered owner of the 2018 Volvo commercial passenger bus, according to the agency. According to U.S. Department of Transportation records, the company has a location in Atlanta and is headquartered in Laredo, Texas.
According to those records, the company’s vehicles were involved in one fatal crash, two collisions that resulted in injuries, and one crash that only required a tow truck in the 24 months prior to Friday.
According to the records, during that same period, its buses and drivers were either out of commission or unable to work at a lower average rate than the national average for such carriers.
A request for comment via email was not immediately answered by Regiomontanos Autobuses. News media should call back later, according to someone who answered a company phone line that was registered with the Department of Transportation.
According to the federal transportation department, the company claimed on a federal registration form that its buses covered almost 2.1 million miles in 2023.
The company Regiomontanos Autobuses is listed as a transportation provider for hire. Its federal carrier safety rating was listed as “conditional,” and the department stated that a compliance review was being conducted on it.
“A compliance review may be conducted to investigate potential violations of safety regulations or complaints about motor carriers, among other reasons,” according to a safety rating primer published by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of the department.
According to the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the Commercial Transportation Enforcement Division and the agency are investigating the collision.
In cooperation with the highway patrol, the NTSB will dispatch a team to look into the collision, the agency announced in a statement.
