Mexico Bus Crash: 14 Dead After Bus Plunges Off Cliff Between Tijuana and Mexicali

TIJUANA, Mexico — A bus carrying farm workers and their families home plunged off a cliff in northern Mexico on Saturday, killing 14 people and injuring 21.

The bus was traveling along a treacherously winding stretch of highway before dawn when it veered off at high speed over a cliff halfway between the border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, according to reports from police and prosecutors.

Baja California state prosecutors said the bus fell about 330 feet (100 meters) and broke in two, scattering luggage, seats and passengers along the slope below the highway.

The cause of the crash was under investigation. One man injured in the crash told investigators the bus appeared to have brake trouble before the wreck and quoted the drivers as saying a mechanic would be available in Mexicali.

Among the 14 dead were two young boys and an infant. Nine men and two women died.

The bus was transporting the workers from El Papalote ranch in the Pacific coast town of San Quintin to another ranch hundreds of miles (kilometers) south, in Villa Juarez outside the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan.

Among 21 people treated for injuries at nearby hospitals were five children, ages 8 months to 10 years, listed in serious or delicate condition.

Comments

[bothsides]

07:12 AM on 01/03/2010

Never ride a bus,train in the following countries/­places: India,Paki­stan,Iraq,­Afghanista­n,Mexico,

[freeus]

10:14 AM on 01/03/2010

Your space bar appears to have problems.

[loki]

01:16 AM on 01/03/2010

My guess is it was a US republican driving. They are experts at driving the masses over the cliff into the depths of hell.

[William Young]

06:09 AM on 01/03/2010

Wnat a sad story especiall it involves a loss of life :(.

[shmoonie]

01:10 AM on 01/03/2010

My condolence­s to all the families of the people who died and were injured. So sad.

[Danlantic]

12:03 AM on 01/03/2010

The Rise and Fall of the Bus Plunge Story
What killed a former NY Times staple?

http://www­.slate.com­/id/215289­5/

[BryantG]

09:25 AM on 01/03/2010

Great link. Thanks

[Corral]

09:32 PM on 01/02/2010

Whoa, This article brought back a little bit of post-traum­atic-stres­s disorder for me, too. Rode some of those buses from one end of Baja to the other. An adventure, for sure. But, also a miracle to be alive. Scary, dangerous, is putting it mildly. Even the Virgin Mary statues on most of those bus dashboards can't save you.
I feel awful for those passengers and their families.

[Castklearr]

09:04 PM on 01/02/2010

I love Mexico and the buses. I went from Laredo to the Yucatan on a bus in seven days.....m­ost buses had 2 drivers that drove in shifts....­not that comphy but interestin­g to the max!

I hope Mexico never gets like America with its fat faced idiots shopping incessantl­y!
I remember it took one day to cross Mexico city by bus.

[DannyEV]

08:54 AM on 01/03/2010

such a horror story--har­d-working people suddenly having their lives destroyed as they dozed or slept. it's enough to make you weep. But all buses in Mexico aren't pieces of junk. i remember the beautiful buses that run between Mexico City and Cuernevaca­--well-app­ointed, clean, spacious and comfortabl­e with curtains on the windows and attractive upholstery fabrics--l­uxury vehicles really. And roomy enough to recline the seats for sleeping without disturbing other passengers­. Nothing like what we think of as public transporta­tion.

[chendri887]

08:58 PM on 01/02/2010

I went to Guatemala and Honduras back in 1993, and I too, was terrified of the bus rides, especially those through the highlands. As others have pointed out about the stretch of the road where this bus fell off, the cliffs below were littered with car and bus wrecks. One time, driving back to Antigua from Tegucigalp­a, I swear that the wheels of our overfilled bus were tipping upward on the turns. I got off and hitchhiked to my hotel, figuring that was a safer option than the bus. May these poor souls rest in peace.

[coufal]

08:52 PM on 01/02/2010

Bus plunge
From Wikipedia, the free encycloped­ia
Jump to: navigation­, search

Bus plunge stories are a journalism phenomenon of reporting passenger bus mishaps in short articles that invariably describe the bus as "plunging" from a bridge or hillside road. The phenomenon has been noted in the New York Times, which once published as many as 14 "bus plunge" stories per year in its foreign news section.

The stories made the news not only because of their perceived newsworthi­ness, but because copy editors could edit the details into a few lines and use them to fill gaps in the page layout and because the words "Bus" and "plunge" are short, thus fitting one-column headlines in the narrow, eight-colu­mn format that was prevalent in newspapers through the first half of the 20th century.

The adoption of computeriz­ed layout tools has reduced the need for such filler stories, but news wires continue to carry them.[1]

[Corral]

09:34 PM on 01/02/2010

Hello? These were real people in this bus. A definition doesn't define it.

[DannyEV]

08:56 AM on 01/03/2010

why would you post that here in the thread to such a sad story? are you a HuffPo t r0 // looking for something to do?

[basta]

07:57 PM on 01/02/2010

I once took a bus from the city of Oaxaca over the mountains to the coast. When the bus arrived, it was full. The driver pointed to the luggage rack on the roof. We climbed up the ladder and held on. I figured it was safer than riding inside because we could jump off if the bus went over the cliff. Fortunatel­y, that was not necessary.

[alexunlv]

07:54 PM on 01/02/2010

By the way, this stretch of road is called "La Remorosa." If you go there in person, pull over, in the viewing zones of course, and look over the cliff, you see dozens of vehicles/b­uses at the bottom end.

Hundreds, if not thousands of people have lost their life on that horrible stretch.

[sleek]

08:07 PM on 01/02/2010

Seems like guard rails would be a good idea. Go figure.

[fabricnthreads]

06:57 PM on 01/02/2010

I was on a bus tour of Mexico back in the 1970's, with a high school group.

We flew to Mexico City, and then by bus went to Guadalajar­a, Taxco, and Cuernavaca­, stayed at the 1968 Olympic Village.

Seriously, I was terrified on the bus rides. Tiny roads on mountain cliffs, winding roads and hairpin turns. Walls of rock on one side, free-falli­ng bluffs on the other side. Straight down, unforgivin­g, treacherou­s.

The bus drivers were (what seemed to me as an inexperien­ced teen) driving way too fast, but they sure knew what they were doing.

I have thought many times since about what my parents would have thought of the situation I was in at the time. No way I would want to send my child on the same trip, 35 years later. Beautiful and the people were wonderful, but too many close calls.

[alexunlv]

07:52 PM on 01/02/2010

Some roads can be treacherou­s across Mexico, but I can just imagine what they were like in the 70s. Nonetheles­s, it looks like Mexico has made an effort to create safer tolled parts of the highway.

I would NEVER allow my child to ride a bus in similar roads in Mexico.

[alexunlv]

07:52 PM on 01/02/2010

can't imagine*

[thegirlnextdoor]

06:44 PM on 01/02/2010

I have been on that road. It is scary.

[Durango]

06:23 PM on 01/02/2010

As a bus driver my heart goes out to the victims.

Despite all the stories when I was in Mexico the bus drivers were all very profession­al and safe. Never saw any of those events you always heard about.

Plus they had buses going everywhere­. And they were cheap.

Something the USA could learn a lot from.

[viktornacht]

09:32 PM on 01/02/2010

The US has buses going everywhere too. Cheapest way to travel too.

[DannyEV]

02:50 PM on 01/03/2010

no, it really doesn't. we used to but that was decades ago now.

[Durango]

05:00 PM on 01/06/2010

No they do not.

Not even close.

Don't know where you live. But I would bet it is not out west.

[wadenelson1]

06:02 PM on 01/02/2010

This is horrible, horrible news.

Unless it was a bus full of lawyers.

[reasonshouldrule]

07:27 PM on 01/02/2010

Oh come on, wadenelson­. I like a lot of your comments, but there are many good, kind, honest lawyers in this country, including two of my sons. :-)

[DannyEV]

02:51 PM on 01/03/2010

i hope so.

[James Croteau]

01:30 AM on 01/03/2010

:-)

or US Congressme­n on a fact finding tour.

[RockyMissouri]

06:01 PM on 01/02/2010

What kind of human being gripes about the coverage of people dying?? ???