Extracted from The Fort Scott Tribune (Fort Scott, KS)
Tuesday, June 10, 1980

Brakes bad on bus in Arkansas crash

JASPER, Ark. (AP) -- A bus loaded with sightseers apparently was not operating with full braking power and may have had some transmission trouble when it left a winding Arksansas highway and plunged down a ravine, killing 20 people, investigators says.

In addition, driver James Jefferson Thigpen, credited by some authorities with doing all he could to save the lives of passengers, may have been suffering from heart trouble and low blood sugar when his bus crashed last week, according to a preliminary report by federal investigators.

``It appears as though the brake system on the bus was not 100 percent operational,'' Claude Harris, one of the National Transportation Safety Board investigators, said Monday.

Investigators said the bus was operating with 70 percent braking power -- not enough to stop it -- at the time of the Thursday crash, the worst in Arkansas history.

Twenty people were killed and 13 injured when the Central Texas Buslines bus went out of control on a mountain road and plunged 50 feet down a steep ravine. Officials said last week it appeared the 60-year-old Thigpen, of Lancaster, Texas, had tried to use the ravine as a braking mechanism in order to save the lives of his passengers, who were on a sight-seeing tour from the Dallas area.

``There were physical problems with the driver, hypoglycemia and possibly heart problems,'' said Tom Calderwood, head of the NTSB team, in revealing the results of a preliminary autopsy report.

Hypoglycemia is a medical condition described as an abnormally low concentration of sugar in the blood. The autopsy was done by state Medical Examiner Dr. Fahmy Malak of Little Rock and Calderwood said Malak would release details of the report later this week.

Investigators also said the bus had only ``70 percent effective braking'' power, as well as apparent problems with the transmission.

``Two air chambers which operate the brakes on two different wheels appeared to be malfunctioning,'' Harris said. ``One additional drive wheel appeared to have had a leaky grease seal on the bearings, which would have made that brake system malfunction.

He said 70 percent power would not have been enough to stop the bus.

``We inspected all the linings on the brake system, and the linings themselves were in acceptable shape,'' Harris said.

He said the driver also apparently had difficulty getting the bus into gear. He said a more detailed investigation of the apparent transmission problem would begin today.

All other mechanical systems were operational, Harris said.

``The driver was described as being awake and alert and doing all he could to maintain the vehicle on the highway,'' Calderwood said.

The passengers' testimony revealed the driver attempted to downshift when the bus was already headed downhill.

``The first sign of trouble was the clashing gears and the lateral acceleration of the bus, the pull of centrifugal force around sharp curves at a high rate of speed,'' Calderwood said.

He said the investigation of the accident was about three-fourths completed Monday.