Regulators Shut Down Bus Company Involved in Fatal Crash Citing “Immediate Hazard to Public Safety”

U.S. regulators ordered the immediate shutdown of a tour bus operator involved in a deadly tour bus crash on a mountain road in San Bernardino County last weekend.

The Sunday evening crash killed at least eight people, including seven tour bus passengers and a pickup driver who was struck by the bus as it careened out of control on Highway 38 near Yucaipa. Dozens of people were injured in the crash, some of them critically.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said in a statement Friday that the buses operated by Scapadas Magicas LLC pose an imminent hazard to public safety.

"After the tragic crash earlier this week, FMCSA investigators quickly inspected this carrier’s other two buses which had been operated on U.S. roads, and immediately shut them down," said FMCSA Administrator Anne S. Ferro. "Today, we've officially blocked the company from conducting future operations in the United States."

A bus operated by the company was transporting passengers to Tijuana, Mexico, on Sunday when it smashed into a sedan, flipped, slammed into a pickup and crashed on a road in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Document: Imminent Hazard Out-of-Service Order (PDF)

A post-crash investigation of the company's two other buses that had been operating in the U.S. found serious mechanical safety violations, regulators said. The buses were immediately placed out of service.

Inspectors said the company also failed to have its vehicles regularly inspected.