Advertisement

Prison bus skids off highway in deadly crash

January 14, 2015 at 10:31PM
Officials investigate the scene of a prison transport bus crash in Penwell, Texas, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015. Law enforcement officials said the bus carrying prisoners and corrections officers fell from an overpass in West Texas and crashed onto train tracks below, killing an unspecified number of people. (AP Photo/The Odessa American, Mark Sterkel)
Officials on Wednesday said the overpass was slick with ice when a prison transport bus crashed in Penwell, Texas. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

ODESSA, Texas – Eight inmates and two corrections officers died Wednesday when a prison bus skidded off an icy West Texas highway, slid down an embankment and collided with a passing freight train, authorities said.

The overpass on Interstate 20 was slick with ice Wednesday morning when the Texas Department of Criminal Justice bus left the roadway in Penwell, just west of Odessa, according to Ector County Sheriff Mark Donaldson.

An earlier accident on the overpass may have contributed to the prison bus losing control, Donaldson said.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed the 10 deaths in a statement, adding that four prisoners and one corrections officer were injured.

"It's as bad as you can imagine," Odessa Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Kavin Tinney told the Odessa American newspaper. "In 32 years it's as bad as anything I've seen."

Tiffany Harston, spokeswoman for Medical Center Hospital in Odessa, said four of the injured are in critical condition and one is in serious condition.

Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Department of Criminal Justice, said the bus was taking the inmates from the Middleton prison in Abilene to the Sanchez prison in El Paso. The prisoners were handcuffed together in pairs.

No Union Pacific employees were injured.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Associated Press

about the writer

about the writer

More from Minnesota Star Tribune

See More
In this photo taken Monday, March 6, 2017, in San Francisco, released confidential files by The University of California of a sexual misconduct case, like this one against UC Santa Cruz Latin Studies professor Hector Perla is shown. Perla was accused of raping a student during a wine-tasting outing in June 2015. Some of the files are so heavily redacted that on many pages no words are visible. Perla is one of 113 UC employees found to have violated the system's sexual misconduct policies in rece

We respect the desire of some tipsters to remain anonymous, and have put in place ways to contact reporters and editors to ensure the communication will be private and secure.

Advertisement
Advertisement