Seven people, including a 6-year-old and a 16-year-old, are dead and 36 were injured after a passenger bus traveling from Atlanta to Dallas crashed in Mississippi early Saturday morning.
The bus was traveling westbound when it left the roadway and overturned on Interstate 20 in Warren County, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol, which responded to the scene around 12:40 a.m.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash, the agency said in a news release. It’s not clear what caused the crash at this time, but the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the bus experienced “a tire failure” while on the interstate.
Six passengers were pronounced dead on the scene and one died in a nearby hospital, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol. All seven victims were from Guatemala, and included two siblings — a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister — per the Warren County Coroner’s office.
The identities of the victims have not been released pending notification of next of kin.
All 36 survivors aboard the bus were taken to hospitals “with unknown injuries,” the highway patrol said in a statement Saturday night.
The agency initially said 37 people were injured.
A manifest included 41 passengers, it said. The document did not include two drivers also onboard, according to the statement.
The agency described the vehicle as a 2018 Volvo commercial passenger bus registered to Regiomontanos Autobuses. The company is based in Laredo, Texas, and has a location in Atlanta, according to U.S. Department of Transportation records.
In the 24 months prior to Friday, the company’s vehicles have been involved in one fatal crash, two injury collisions and one crash that required a tow truck only, according to those records.
In the same time frame its buses and drivers were out of service or unable to work at a lower average rate than the national average for such carriers, according to the records.
Regiomontanos Autobuses did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Someone who answered a company phone line listed with the Department of Transportation said members of the news media should call back later.
On a federal registration form, the company said its buses traveled nearly 2.1 million miles in 2023, according to the federal transportation department.
Regiomontanos Autobuses is listed as a for-hire transportation company. Its federal carrier safety rating was listed as “conditional,” with the department noting it was the subject of a compliance review.
“A compliance review may be conducted to investigate potential violations of safety regulations or complaints about motor carriers, among other reasons,” the department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration states in a primer on safety ratings.
The crash is being investigated by the Mississippi Highway Patrol and the Commercial Transportation Enforcement Division, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said.
The NTSB will send a team to investigate the crash in coordination with highway patrol, the agency said in a statement.
Breaking news reporter
Tangni Noriega
Tangni Noriega is an assignment editor for NBC News.
Dennis Romero is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
Michelle Acevedo
contributed
.
