tour bus accident las vegas

1 dead, others hurt after tour bus rolls on its way to Grand Canyon

One person is dead and others were seriously injured after a tour bus headed to the Grand Canyon crashed in Arizona on Friday, the sheriff's office said.

The tour bus, which was managed by a Las Vegas company, was carrying 48 people, including the driver, according to the Mohave County Sheriff's Office.

It rolled and landed on its side around 12:20 p.m. on Diamond Bar Road on its way toward the Grand Canyon National Park, the officials said.

One person was killed, two others were in critical condition and seven others were also taken to a hospital with less serious injuries, the sheriff's office said.

Thirty-three other people on the bus had minor injuries.

The name of the tour bus company, and where exactly it departed from were not released in the sheriff's statement. The accident is under investigation, it said.

Photos of the scene showed the bus on its side. Some on social media described helping pull people out of the bus.

The Red Cross of Arizona tweeted that it was monitoring the situation. The agency provides shelter and other assistance to those in need following accidents and disasters.

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Grand Canyon West is about a 126-mile drive from downtown Las Vegas. It's on the Hualapai Reservation west of Grand Canyon National Park and has attractions like the Skywalk, which extends about 70 feet over the canyon's rim.

The Hualapai Tribe said in a statement that it and its business, the Grand Canyon Resort Corporation, is "deeply saddened" by the deadly accident.

"As a people, our hearts go out to those so deeply affected," the tribe said. "We wish speedy recoveries to those requiring medical attention."

Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.

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1 dead, dozens injured in Grand Canyon tour bus rollover

One person died, two were in critical condition and another 40 were hospitalized Friday after a Grand Canyon tour bus rolled over about 70 miles southeast of Las Vegas.

One person died, two were in critical condition, and 40 others were hospitalized Friday after a Grand Canyon tour bus rolled over about 70 miles southeast of Las Vegas.

A bus run by a Las Vegas-based company carrying 48 people, including the driver, was headed to Grand Canyon West when, around 12:20 p.m., the bus rolled over near mile marker 5 on Diamond Bar Road in Meadview, Arizona, according to a statement from the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office.

One person was pronounced dead at the scene, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Forty others were taken by ambulance to Kingman Regional Medical Center.

A spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office said the cause of the wreck was not yet known, but a fire official who responded said speed appeared to be a factor. No other vehicles were involved.

“It was a heavily damaged bus. He slid down the road quite a ways, so there was a lot of wreckage,” Lake Mohave Ranchos Fire District Chief Tim Bonney said. “Just to put it in perspective, on a scale of zero to 10, an eight.”

None of the passengers was thrown from the vehicle, but they were all in shock, Bonney said.

“A lot of them were saying the bus driver was driving at a high rate of speed,” he said.

The Red Cross said in a tweet it was they were monitoring the situation. It was unclear if the Red Cross was were responding to the scene.

The @redcross Central & Northern AZ Chapter is aware of the transportation accident involving a bus near the Grand Canyon and is monitoring the situation. — Red Cross AZ (@RedCrossAZ) January 22, 2021

The area has seen at least three tour bus crashes in recent years, two involving fatalities.

In October 2010, two passengers died and several others injured in the crash of a Las Vegas tour bus headed for the Skywalk at Grand Canyon West in northwest Arizona.

In July 2010, several people were injured after a car collided with a Grand Canyon tour bus on U.S. Highway 93 at Pearce Ferry Road, 48 miles south of Boulder City.

In January 2009, seven people were killed and nine others injured after a tour bus carrying Chinese tourists overturned 27 miles south of the Hoover Dam.

Grand Canyon West, outside the boundaries of the national park, sits on the Hualapai reservation. It’s best known for the Skywalk, a glass bridge that juts out 70 feet from the canyon walls and gives visitors a view of the Colorado River 4,000 feet below.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at [email protected] or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Speed was likely factor in Grand Canyon tour bus crash, report finds

by FELICIA FONSECA and JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press

A tour bus on its way to the Grand Canyon was speeding when it flipped on its side, killing one passenger while injuring dozens, according to an investigative report that stops short of drawing conclusions about the cause of the crash.

Four dozen people from across the country were on the bus operated by Las Vegas-based Comedy On Deck Tours when it veered into a dirt embankment, over ruts and rocks, and hit Joshua trees on Jan. 22. At one point, it rode the face of a small hill and was airborne before coming back on to the road and flipping on its side, according to records.

The passengers suffered injuries ranging from abrasions and ankle sprains to fractures, blunt force trauma and broken ribs. Shelley Ann Voges from Booneville, Indiana, was partially ejected and died. Her husband and son, who recently had moved west, also were on the trip.

RELATED | Indiana woman identified in deadly Arizona tour bus crash; 3 critically injured

The bus was heading to Grand Canyon West, about 2.5 hours from Las Vegas and outside the boundaries of the national park. The tourist destination is on the Hualapai reservation and is best known for the Skywalk, a glass bridge that juts out 70 feet (21 meters) from the canyon walls and gives visitors a view of the Colorado River 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) below.

The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office released the crash report, body camera footage, photographs and 911 call recordings to The Associated Press in response to a public records request. The office didn’t respond to additional questions about the report Wednesday.

Passengers told authorities that it appeared the driver possibly had fallen asleep and was driving too fast. The records also call into question whether the automatic engine brake was engaged as the bus traveled on a curve and slightly downhill.

Mohave County sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Coffin noted speed limits of 45 mph posted along the road. The driver, Gary Griep, told authorities he was going no more than 40 mph, but the records say the GPS on the bus put the speed at 62 mph.

Griep said the engine brake, which helps slow and control the bus, was engaged, but two other bus drivers who were on tours in the area that day and stopped at the crash site said that didn’t appear to be true.

The crash report also said there were no visible marks on the tires or in the embankment to indicate heavy braking or steering for at least 700 feet (213 meters). Only when the bus hit a raised embankment did it veer from its path, the report said.

The investigation has not been turned over to prosecutors, said Cara Engstom of the Mohave County Attorney’s Office. The sheriff’s office is awaiting the results of a toxicology test on Griep and an autopsy report on Voges.

Passengers who had to crawl out of a rooftop hatch, the back door or large windows said they thought Griep might have fallen asleep. Griep told authorities he got at least eight hours of sleep the night before, doesn’t drink alcohol and wasn’t under the influence of any drugs. He said he sometimes coughed so hard his head hung low but he always kept his eyes on the road.

He attributed the crash to gusty winds that the National Weather Service said were 13 to 19 mph at the time.

Griep picked up passengers at hotels along the Las Vegas Strip that morning, took them to breakfast and the Hoover Dam and then headed toward the Grand Canyon Skywalk. As he came around a corner, he said the wind pushed the rear of the bus off the shoulder and into the embankment.

“Once it was in, I was fighting to get it back out, but once I did, it rolled over,” he said.

He told authorities he knew the road well and had made the trip hundreds of times. In his 20 years of driving buses, he said he never had another accident. He hung up abruptly Wednesday when reached by the AP.

Voges husband, Hubert, told authorities that passengers were tossed around the bus in the moments before it flipped, struggling to hold on, and screamed and cried. He said the trip was on the “bucket list” for his family, and he and Shelley Voges planned to return home the following day. He declined Wednesday to say more by phone.

Friends have said Shelley Voges, 53, was a sweet and compassionate woman.

Sheriff’s officials noted that all of the seat belts were in the locked position and didn’t appear to be worn. The driver was wearing a seat belt.

Two lawsuits have been filed against Comedy On Deck Tours over the fatal crash.

Four surviving passengers allege negligence on the part of the tour bus operator and Griep. The company has denied the allegations, according to court records, and didn’t return a call Wednesday from the AP.

Justin Zarcone, a Las Vegas attorney who represents the tour bus company in one of the lawsuits, declined comment Wednesday.

Bus in deadly Grand Canyon crash offers tours by comedians

A tour bus that rolled over last week at the Grand Canyon, killing one person and injuring others, was operated by a Las Vegas company that offers tours guided by comedians, authorities said Monday.

The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office identified 53-year-old Shelley Ann Voges of Boonville, Indiana, as the person who died in the crash in a remote area Friday.

More than 40 people were on the bus operated by tour company Comedy On Deck. Three who were critically injured, including two later transported to Las Vegas for treatment, are now listed in stable condition. Forty other passengers were treated and released from an Arizona hospital.

Investigators said the majority of the passengers on the bus were from the United States. No other identities were released.

Authorities say the cause of the rollover is under investigation, though a fire official has said speed appeared to be a factor. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.

Comedy On Deck brings customers from the Las Vegas Strip to the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon West in tours guided by professional comedians, according to the company’s website. In a video, Comedy On Deck said safety concerns led to a practice of using a comedian as a guide and employing another person as a driver, rather than have a driver take on double duties.

No one picked up the phone when The Associated Press called the tour company several times Monday. The company also didn’t immediately respond to an email.

A decade ago, Comedy On Deck agreed to a $1,980 settlement with regulators for violating a policy that bars commercial vehicles from operating without authorization from federal transportation officials, according to records.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates bus companies and other commercial vehicles, declined to say Monday whether that means Comedy On Deck was accused of using a bus that wasn’t registered or licensed to transport passengers.

It’s unknown whether traffic citations or criminal charges will be filed against the driver, whose identity hasn’t been released.

Anita Mortensen, a spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, said the agency is in the process of interviewing passengers to determine what caused the rollover.

The bus was heading to Grand Canyon West, about 2 1/2 hours from Las Vegas and outside the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park. The tourist destination sits on the Hualapai reservation and is best known for the Skywalk, a glass bridge that juts out 70 feet (21 meters) from the canyon walls and gives visitors a view of the Colorado River 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) below.

Before the pandemic, about 1 million people a year visited Grand Canyon West, mostly through tours booked out of Las Vegas. The Hualapai reservation includes 108 miles (174 kilometers) of the Grand Canyon’s western rim.

Other deadly crashes have happened before in the area.

Four Chinese nationals died in 2016 when their van collided with a Dallas Cowboys staff bus headed to a preseason promotional stop in Las Vegas.

In 2009, a tour bus carrying Chinese nationals overturned on U.S. 93 near the Hoover Dam, killing several people and injuring others. The group was returning from a Grand Canyon trip.

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