Highway Accident Report: School Bus Run-off-Bridge Accident, Omaha, Nebraska, October 13, 2001

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Overview

On Saturday, October 13, 2001, about 2:00 p.m. central daylight time, a 2000 Thomas Built Buses, Inc., 78-passenger school bus carrying 27 Seward High School students and 3 adults (excluding the driver) was traveling westbound through a work zone on U.S. Route 6 in Omaha, Nebraska. As the Seward bus entered the work zone lane shift at the approach to the West Papillion Creek Bridge, it encountered a 1986 Motor Coach Industries 52-passenger motorcoach carrying Norfolk High School students traveling eastbound. Although no collision occurred between the Norfolk and Seward buses, the westbound school bus departed the traveled roadway on the right and subsequently struck the W-beam barrier on the approach to the bridge, steered to the left momentarily, and then steered abruptly back to the right, striking the W-beam again and, finally, a three-rail barrier between the guardrail and the concrete bridge railing. The bus passed through the remains of the three-rail barrier, rode up onto the bridge's sidewall, and rolled 270 degrees clockwise as it fell about 49 feet, landing on its left side in a 1-foot-deep creek below the bridge. Three students and one adult sustained fatal injuries. The remaining passengers and the busdriver sustained injuries ranging from serious to minor.