Tour bus overturns in Texas, killing 2

CAMPBELLTON, Texas (AP) - A bus headed for Mexico carrying 40 people overturned along a southern Texas highway on Tuesday, killing at least two people and sending at least 30 people to hospitals, officials said.

The accident happened around 10 a.m. on southbound Interstate 37, about 45 miles south of San Antonio, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said. He said investigators suspect equipment failure may have caused the crash.

"The driver said she heard a loud pop and then lost control of the vehicle," Vinger told The Associated Press.

The bus came to rest on its side in the grassy median. Television footage showed people milling around outside the overturned bus, which had with debris and luggage strewn around it.

Some of the injuries were serious, Vinger said.

At least 30 people from the bus were taken to area hospitals.

Twenty-four passengers were in stable condition at South Texas Regional Medical Center in Atascosa County, hospital spokeswoman Danielle Flores said. One person taken there was later airlifted to a hospital in San Antonio, she said.

Two passengers were transported directly from the crash site to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and at least four others were taken to University Hospital in San Antonio. Those patients' conditions were not immediately known.

The bus was carrying Mexican and American passengers, Vinger said.

It was headed from San Antonio to Matamoros, Mexico, near the U.S. border, with a planned stop in Falfurrias, Texas. The bus was operated by Americanos USA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dallas-based Greyhound Lines Inc., said Bonnie Bastian, a spokeswoman for Greyhound's parent company, FirstGroup America.

"We are assisting local authorities with their investigation, and our top priorities are the passengers on board as well as our driver," she said.

Bastian said two buses have been dispatched to the accident scene from San Antonio to pick up uninjured passengers. One will take those who want to continue the trip to Mexico, and the other will carry those who want to return to San Antonio, she said.

Bastian said she did not have any information about the condition of the passengers or information about the driver.

"Right now our priority is to the passengers on the bus," Bastian said.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it has not determined whether it will investigate, agency spokesman Keith Holloway said. A spokeswoman with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said the agency had just heard about the crash and was beginning to gather information.

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Associated Press writers Paul J. Weber in San Antonio, and Jeff Carlton and Danny Robbins in Dallas contributed to this report.