A school bus crash occurring on September 21, 1989 in
Alton, Texas
Alton is a city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States. The population was 12,298 at the 2010 census and an estimated 19,509 in 2020.
History
Alton was founded in 1910 or 1911 by citizens and railroad officials of Alton, Illinois.
On Septembe ...
, in the
Rio Grande Valley
The Lower Rio Grande Valley ( es, Valle del Río Grande), commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The ...
region, resulted in the deaths of 21 junior and senior high school students by drowning or causes related to being asphyxiated. A bottling truck collided with the school bus, causing the bus to enter a
caliche
Caliche () is a sedimentary rock, a hardened natural cement of calcium carbonate that binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt. It occurs worldwide, in aridisol and mollisol soil orders—generally in arid or semiarid regions, ...
pit filled with water. The driver of the truck was acquitted of negligent homicide charges. The payoffs from lawsuits compensating for the deaths of the students caused division in the Alton community. A middle school that was built in Alton was named in honor of the deceased.
According to the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA ) is an agency of the U.S. federal government, part of the Department of Transportation. It describes its mission as "Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes" rela ...
Fatal Accident Reporting System, the Alton crash was the sole school bus accident in the United States in the period 1979–1989 in which passengers died due to submersion-related causes. it is the deadliest school bus accident that had ever occurred in Texas.
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...
. Retrieved on August 2, 2018. a
Dr Pepper
Dr Pepper is a carbonated soft drink. It was created in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas, and first served around 1885. Dr Pepper was first nationally marketed in the United States in 1904. It is now also sold in Euro ...
delivery truck, - Also at ''
Washington Times
''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout ...
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
Bottling Company, collided with a
Mission Consolidated Independent School District
Mission Consolidated Independent School District is a public school district based in Mission, Texas (USA), in the lower Rio Grande Valley.Farm to Market Road 676, also known as 5 Mile Road/Line and Mile 5 Road/Line,NTSB report, p. 1 (PDF p. 8/95). at Bryan Road. The bus had just picked up its final student. There was no barrier that would have stopped the bus before it entered the caliche pit.NTSB report, p. 48 (PDF p. 55/95). The bus was built in 1977 and had a capacity of 84 seats. The truck was determined to have gone through a stop sign.
The students on board, ranging in age from 12 to 19, attended Mission Junior High School and
Mission High School Mission High School may refer to:
* Mission High School (San Francisco, California), a public high school in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) San Francisco, California
* Mission High School (Mission, Texas), a secondary school loc ...
in
Mission, Texas
Mission is a city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States. Its population was 77,058 at the 2010 census and an estimated 84,331 in 2019. Mission is part of the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission and Reynosa–McAllen metropolitan areas.
Geography
M ...
, and were from the portion of Alton that had the lowest socioeconomic status. The bus had 42 students in senior high school and 39 students in junior high school.
The bus fell into a caliche pit with about of water. Caliche pits in the area had filled with rainwater as time passed; there were no laws requiring owners of the pits to have them filled in after mining was finished. The bus filled with water within 30 to 60 seconds,NTSB report, p. 42 (PDF p. 49/95). resulting from openings in side windows, the front boarding door, and the windshield which had become dislodged. The students did not have an air pocket which would have given them time to determine how to escape.NTSB report, p. 41 (PDF p. 48/95).
The lack of visibility in the caliche-filled water prevented students from seeing available exits. In addition, some students became trapped in the windows because of their large sizes, and multiple students attempted the same routes of egress at the same time. The NTSB named the small sizes of the exits as factors inhibiting escape. According to the NTSB, the available time was "inadequate time for 81 desperate students to escape through the available window openings and the rear emergency door that did not remain open before they were trapped underwater."
Agents from the U.S. Border Patrol and 125 emergency vehicles from various agencies assisted in the rescue.
Victims
Of the 81 students on board, 11 students sustained no injuries, 46 sustained minor injuries, 3 sustained serious injuries, and 21 died; all 21 deaths were due to drowning or due to causes related to being in the water. 19 died on September 21, and an additional two died later in the hospital from complications related to the asphyxia they had experienced, with the final deceased victim dying on September 29. Both the drivers of the truck and the bus survived the accident.
None of the passengers experienced trauma-related injuries which would have prevented them from exiting the bus. Most of the deceased students were away from the exits, in the bus's center.
Legal
The driver of the truck, Ruben Perez, was charged in criminal court with 21 counts of homicide by negligence, but a jury acquitted him on all counts in 1993.
In February 1990 the bottling company made the first settlement with a victim's family. The bottling company paid a total of $133 million in settlements, and it gave each family $4.5 million per deceased victim. Blue Bird Body Company (now
Blue Bird Corporation
The Blue Bird Corporation (originally known as the Blue Bird Body Company) is an American bus manufacturer headquartered in Fort Valley, Georgia. Best known for its production of school buses, the company has also manufactured a wide variety o ...
) also paid a total of $23 million in settlements. The lawyers for the plaintiffs of the lawsuits received about $50 million. About 30 brothers and sisters of deceased victims received trust funds ranging in size from $50,000 to $250,000, while parents received the remainder of, and the bulk of, the settlements for victims' relatives. Some community residents criticized some of the victims' families as they used the settlement money to make large automobile or house purchases, and some community members expected those receiving settlements to lend money to them; this caused estrangement between the recipients of the settlements and other community members.
Aftermath
A
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
game scheduled for September 22 was converted into a memorial service held at the Mission stadium. The
McAllen
McAllen is the largest city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States, and the 22nd-most populous city in Texas. It is located at the southern tip of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Mexico–United States border. The city limits extend ...
and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo districts also canceled their September 22 game.
In May 1990 a guardrail system along FM 676 at the accident site was installed by the Texas Department of Highways and Public Transportation, as the City of Alton had requested. Other guardrails were installed around area caliche pits.
Alton Memorial Junior High School in Alton was named in honor of the victims. On September 21, 2003 the school had its dedication ceremony.
In 2004 a park developed by the city of Alton as a memorial opened; it was funded by a
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) is a Texas state agency that oversees and protects wildlife and their habitats. In addition, the agency is responsible for managing the state's parks and historical areas. Its mission is to manage ...
grant. The Josefa Garcia Park has a memorial with 21 crosses, one per deceased victim, and a statue of Jesus Christ. The memorial is at the intersection of Bryan Road and Mile 5 Line.
Media depiction and documentation
The 1991 novel '' The Sweet Hereafter'' received inspiration from the Alton bus crash; it was adapted into the 1997 film '' The Sweet Hereafter''.
The city government of
Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Ant ...
has possession of a boat that was a part of the rescue operations; it was making arrangements to place this boat in a museum.