The charter bus involved in a deadly rollover crash that killed three people and injured another 18 in San Diego County was based in El Monte and had a clean record, according to government records.
The crash happened Saturday morning, when a charter bus owned by Executive Lines Inc. and traveling from El Monte to Tijuana crashed on rain-slicked southbound Interstate 15 south of state Route 76 in Pala Mesa.
A 5-year-old boy critically injured in the crash was airlifted to a Moreno Valley hospital Sunday, authorities said.
Three women were killed in the crash and 18 others were taken to hospitals, five to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, five to Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar and eight to Temecula Valley Hospital, California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Latulippe said.
He said officials were determining the other injured patients’ conditions Sunday morning.
The boy was airlifted from Inland Valley Medical Center to the Riverside University Health System Medical Center in Moreno Valley to be treated for a head wound, Latulippe said.
The accident happened at about 10:30 a.m., when the bus slid off I-15 in a heavy rainstorm, down an embankment and landed on its roof. Most of the injured passengers were either ejected or escaped from the bus, which was equipped with seat belts, the CHP said. Few passengers were wearing seat belts, Latulippe said.
The bus driver, from Whittier, was questioned by officials at a station and voluntarily gave a blood sample, Latulippe said. The driver, whose name was not released, cooperated fully with investigators, he said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation website said that the bus company’s records show no reports of crashes and that it passed all inspections over the past two years.
Latulippe said the bus was stabilized by firefighter crews so that it could be raised and allow crew members to extricate the body of a woman who was pinned underneath. The bus was towed to a CHP evidence yard for processing to see if there were any steering and braking problems.
North County Fire Protection District officials said they were assisted in the accident rescue by crews from Cal Fire, Vista, Camp Pendleton, CHP and Pala.