Some ยunusualย mechanical conditions on the tour bus that crashed in Arkansas last weekend predominated among the initial findings reported by National Transportation Safety Board investigator Gary Van Etten in a Wednesday-morning briefing.
Those findings include the discovery, through laser analysis, that the roof of the 1988-model motor coach — separated from the body in the single-vehicle Interstate-55 accident that killed 15 Chicagoans on their way to the Tunica, Miss., casinos and severely injured 14 more — had been completely coated over with a new aluminum ยskin,ย which added a total weight of 700 pounds. Van Etten said the vehicleยs manufacturer, Motor Coach Industries, were ยpuzzledย by the fact and said, ยWe have yet to determine why somebody would put that on.ย Reasons could range from the cosmetic to the safety-related, he said.
Van Etten said that other ยpieces of the puzzleย unearthed by investigators included the fact that the vehicleยs rear two axes had suffered some measurable displacement and that there were ยcracks in the frame railsย which Arkansas State Highway Police concluded may have ยpre-existedย the accident. While stressing that it was too early for the NTSB team to hazard any conclusions, Van Etten called the cracks a ยsignificant defectย — enough to have sidelined the vehicle if discovered in one of the roadside inspections called for by federal regulations.
The vehicle had been acquired in the mid-ย90s by its operator, Walters Charter and Tours, from another Chicago-area touring company, American Sightseeing, and the renovation work was done subsequent to that,Van Etten said.
Other relevant information released by Van Etten on Wednesday had to do with the history and habits of the vehicleยs driver, Hubert Walters, who was among those killed in the crash. Walters, brother of touring company owner Roosevelt Walters, worked part-time for both his brotherยs operation and another touring line, said Van Etten, who reported, among other facts, that Walters had kept ยextremely incompleteย logs and had been unused to overnight driving.
Information gained from four of the crash survivors indicated that Walters had paused for 15 minutes at an I-55 rest-stop eleven miles north of the crash site. Van Etten said the vehicle had left 17 of skid marks on the road pavement from the rear tires, indicating that the vehicleยs front wheels were already off road when the brakes were first applied.