Police are looking for the owners of the apparently unlicensed charter bus that rolled over Sunday night on a rural Colusa County road, killing 10 people and injuring 35.
The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m., south of Highway 20 between Colusa and Williams at Lone Star and Abel roads, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Pat Landreth. A witness told CHP the bus, traveling north on Lone Star, lost control, flipped into the air, cartwheeled and landed in a ditch.
Colusa County Sheriff-Coroner Scott D. Marshall initially confirmed the deaths of nine passengers – seven at the scene – and a CHP spokeswoman, Fran Clader, said a 10th passenger later died in the hospital.
Thirty-five others, including the driver, were taken to several area hospitals.
The California Highway Patrol has placed the bus driver, 52-year-old Quinton J. Watts, under arrest on suspicion of felony drunken driving. Watts was gravely injured in the wreck and was being treated at Woodland Memorial Hospital.
"He's in extremely critical condition - if he makes it," CHP Officer Bob Kays said this morning.
Investigators are struggling to unravel the bus's murky recent history. The Texas license plates it carried were invalid, and no federal Department of Transportation registration number could be found, according to Officer Bob Kays of the CHP's Williams bureau. Watts also lacked a DL-45 license, the state certification required to drive a passenger bus.
The bus was painted with the Greyhound colors and the company's name was on the side of the coach, but Landreth said the vehicle was sold two years ago to Valley Transit Company. No contact information for Valley Transit was available as of 8 a.m.
The bus was carrying 45 passengers from Sacramento to Colusa Casino Resort, located on Highway 45 three miles north of Colusa, Landreth said.
There were no buses scheduled to arrive at the casino, but that is not uncommon, said Don Kennedy, director of marketing for Colusa Casino Resort.
The casino gets about 150 buses each month and sometimes as many as 200, Kennedy said.
Landreth said the driver of the bus was on medication, but it is too soon to tell if that medication, drugs or alcohol were factors.
The driver of the bus, whom KCRA-TV of Sacramento identified as Quinton J. Watts, was injured and transported by ambulance to Woodland Memorial Hospital. Kays said the driver was alive but "in very bad condition" at 1 a.m.
The witness, off-duty sheriff's Sgt. Merced Corona, told Landreth the bus swerved to one side of the road, overcorrected to the other side before it flipped and rolled. He said "several bodies were thrown from the bus." Skid marks the bus left behind during the accident stretched nearly half a mile, according to Clader, the CHP spokeswoman.
Corona then assisted with rescue efforts that continued into the night.
"He was pulling bodies from the mud before they drowned," Landreth said. "It all happened right in front of him."
Corona told the CHP no other vehicles were on the road.
Water and mud were standing in the ditch where the bus came to a stop on its wheels. The roof of the vehicle was caved in, windows were broken and the body of the bus was mangled.
Rescue crews searched the surrounding fields for additional victims with flashlights Sunday night. Lone Star Road remained closed until about 5:30 a.m. today as investigators finished their work and a crane lifted the wreckage from the site, to be taken to a yard in Williams.
Two hours after the crash, Landreth said he had not "seen any children" involved. The passengers appeared to be mostly of Laotian descent, according to Kays.
Marshall said a master mutual aid plan was enacted for the bus crash. Emergency personnel from Glenn, Lake, Yolo and Sutter counties responded to the scene.
Victims were transported by helicopter and ambulance to area hospitals in Chico, Woodland, Sacramento, Redding and Santa Rosa.
The two-lane road where the crash occurred cuts through rice fields in central Colusa County. The pavement and skies were clear and dry at the time of the incident. The road has gravel shoulders and ditches on each side.
Landreth said it was legal for the bus to be on Lone Star Road, a popular route for motorists, including bus drivers, heading to Colusa Casino Resort from the Sacramento area.
Landreth recalled one other major bus accident that left four injured.
According to the Appeal-Democrat archives, 39 people were on board a Greyhound bus headed to Sacramento from Redding on Interstate 5 on July 1, 2005, when it ran off the road.
Landreth said there were several differences between that incident and Sunday's crash. He said Sunday's crash was on a smaller road and crews had to maneuver through water and mud, which makes recovery efforts difficult.
"Here we've got a bus, in the water and it's mangled," he said.
At a glance
Emergency personnel from Glenn, Lake, Yolo and Sutter counties responded to assist Colusa County agencies for a bus crash Sunday night.
WHAT: A Valley Transit Company-owned charter bus carrying 45 passengers from Sacramento to the Colusa Casino Resort on Highway 45 north of Colusa rolled off a rural road in central Colusa County.
CASUALTIES: 10 dead, 35 injured
WHERE: Lone Star and Abel roads, south of Highway 20 between Colusa and Williams
WHEN: 6:18 p.m. Sunday
The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m., south of Highway 20 between Colusa and Williams at Lone Star and Abel roads, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Pat Landreth. A witness told CHP the bus, traveling north on Lone Star, lost control, flipped into the air, cartwheeled and landed in a ditch.
Colusa County Sheriff-Coroner Scott D. Marshall initially confirmed the deaths of nine passengers – seven at the scene – and a CHP spokeswoman, Fran Clader, said a 10th passenger later died in the hospital.
Thirty-five others, including the driver, were taken to several area hospitals.
The California Highway Patrol has placed the bus driver, 52-year-old Quinton J. Watts, under arrest on suspicion of felony drunken driving. Watts was gravely injured in the wreck and was being treated at Woodland Memorial Hospital.
"He's in extremely critical condition - if he makes it," CHP Officer Bob Kays said this morning.
Investigators are struggling to unravel the bus's murky recent history. The Texas license plates it carried were invalid, and no federal Department of Transportation registration number could be found, according to Officer Bob Kays of the CHP's Williams bureau. Watts also lacked a DL-45 license, the state certification required to drive a passenger bus.
The bus was painted with the Greyhound colors and the company's name was on the side of the coach, but Landreth said the vehicle was sold two years ago to Valley Transit Company. No contact information for Valley Transit was available as of 8 a.m.
The bus was carrying 45 passengers from Sacramento to Colusa Casino Resort, located on Highway 45 three miles north of Colusa, Landreth said.
There were no buses scheduled to arrive at the casino, but that is not uncommon, said Don Kennedy, director of marketing for Colusa Casino Resort.
The casino gets about 150 buses each month and sometimes as many as 200, Kennedy said.
Landreth said the driver of the bus was on medication, but it is too soon to tell if that medication, drugs or alcohol were factors.
The driver of the bus, whom KCRA-TV of Sacramento identified as Quinton J. Watts, was injured and transported by ambulance to Woodland Memorial Hospital. Kays said the driver was alive but "in very bad condition" at 1 a.m.
The witness, off-duty sheriff's Sgt. Merced Corona, told Landreth the bus swerved to one side of the road, overcorrected to the other side before it flipped and rolled. He said "several bodies were thrown from the bus." Skid marks the bus left behind during the accident stretched nearly half a mile, according to Clader, the CHP spokeswoman.
Corona then assisted with rescue efforts that continued into the night.
"He was pulling bodies from the mud before they drowned," Landreth said. "It all happened right in front of him."
Corona told the CHP no other vehicles were on the road.
Water and mud were standing in the ditch where the bus came to a stop on its wheels. The roof of the vehicle was caved in, windows were broken and the body of the bus was mangled.
Rescue crews searched the surrounding fields for additional victims with flashlights Sunday night. Lone Star Road remained closed until about 5:30 a.m. today as investigators finished their work and a crane lifted the wreckage from the site, to be taken to a yard in Williams.
Two hours after the crash, Landreth said he had not "seen any children" involved. The passengers appeared to be mostly of Laotian descent, according to Kays.
Marshall said a master mutual aid plan was enacted for the bus crash. Emergency personnel from Glenn, Lake, Yolo and Sutter counties responded to the scene.
Victims were transported by helicopter and ambulance to area hospitals in Chico, Woodland, Sacramento, Redding and Santa Rosa.
The two-lane road where the crash occurred cuts through rice fields in central Colusa County. The pavement and skies were clear and dry at the time of the incident. The road has gravel shoulders and ditches on each side.
Landreth said it was legal for the bus to be on Lone Star Road, a popular route for motorists, including bus drivers, heading to Colusa Casino Resort from the Sacramento area.
Landreth recalled one other major bus accident that left four injured.
According to the Appeal-Democrat archives, 39 people were on board a Greyhound bus headed to Sacramento from Redding on Interstate 5 on July 1, 2005, when it ran off the road.
Landreth said there were several differences between that incident and Sunday's crash. He said Sunday's crash was on a smaller road and crews had to maneuver through water and mud, which makes recovery efforts difficult.
"Here we've got a bus, in the water and it's mangled," he said.
At a glance
Emergency personnel from Glenn, Lake, Yolo and Sutter counties responded to assist Colusa County agencies for a bus crash Sunday night.
WHAT: A Valley Transit Company-owned charter bus carrying 45 passengers from Sacramento to the Colusa Casino Resort on Highway 45 north of Colusa rolled off a rural road in central Colusa County.
CASUALTIES: 10 dead, 35 injured
WHERE: Lone Star and Abel roads, south of Highway 20 between Colusa and Williams
WHEN: 6:18 p.m. Sunday