Defective Brakes on Doomed Tour Bus
(AP) California Highway Patrol investigators who inspected the wreckage of a tour bus that crashed in the San Bernardino Mountains, killing seven passengers, discovered something startling: All six of the brakes were defective.
The February crash also killed a driver whose pickup truck was smashed as the bus careened out of control down the mountain from the Big Bear ski area.According to documents made public Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board, CHP inspectors found a catastrophic brake failure that a proper inspection could have foreseen.
Federal inspectors had given bus company Scapadas Magicas a safety clearance a month before, but didn’t ask to examine buses during their visit to the company’s headquarters near San Diego, even though its buses had been cited for a host of mechanical problems during spot roadside inspections.
