Fatal Atlanta Bus Accident Not Caused By Mechanical Failures

The National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Kitty Higgins has recently said that there were no mechanical problems with the tour bus that was carrying a college baseball team from Ohio which tragically crashed in Atlanta, Georgia early Friday morning. In the initial stages of the fatal Atlanta bus accident that left 6 dead and numerous others seriously injured, the bus itself was the subject of controversy and was suspected of having some sort of mechanical failure given the way the accident occurred. Based on the NTSB’s latest report, that subject is now closed.

The biggest piece of the puzzle, the bus, was not to blame. “After carefully going over the bus,” Kitty Higgins from the NTSB said. “We’ve determined there was no mechanical error or anything that would have the performance of the vehicle.”

The NTSB also noted in the same release that the bus did not have a black box on board which is a data devise that is useful in recording and determining things like speed and mechanical failures prior to an accident. Even without the blackbox, a timeline of events has been established in connection with the deadly bus accident:

NTSB spokeswoman Kitty Higgins laid out the timeline in a Sunday afternoon news briefing:

» 4:30 a.m. Jerome Neimeyer takes the wheel of the bus in Adairsville, Georgia.

» He drives 54 miles down I-75. Eyewitnesses say he was not talking on a cell phone or CB radio.

» Just before 5:30 a.m., Neimeyer takes the Northside Drive H.O.V. exit at highway speed (exact speed is not yet known). He went through the stop sign, hit the wall, and crashed through the fence.

Also of interesting note however is that the NTSB is still investigating the possibility of highway design defects with the Northside exit ramp itself. As discussed in previous posts, highway design defects could ultimately play a large part in determining why this fatal bus accident occurred in the first place.