ANDREWS, Texas — (Editor’s note: The above video is from earlier coverage of the situation.)
The National Transportation Safety Board is providing more preliminary information concerning the crash that killed nine people, including a 13-year-old boy and six members of the USW golf team.
According to the NTSB, the 13-year-old boy was behind the wheel of the Dodge 2500 when its left front tire blew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uirpGihYArA
The tire was a spare, and the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed.
When the tire blew, it caused the truck to veer into the van head-on.
The NTSB also noted that several of the students in the van were not wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.
One of the van’s passengers was ejected from the vehicle.
The NTSB is considering the crash a “mass casualty accident.”
While the preliminary crash report is expected to be released in two to three weeks, gathering the rest of the evidence will likely take months as it will involve reconstructing the scene, getting information from the vehicle recorders and interviewing witnesses.
Van Occupants
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Six of the student-athletes were killed in the crash, along with a coach. The 13-year-old pickup truck driver and a passenger, 38-year-old Henrich Siemens, were also killed in the crash.
The Texas Department of Public Safety identified the fatally injured coach and team members Wednesday as Tyler James, 26; Mauricio Sanchez, 19; Travis Garcia, 19; Jackson Zinn, 22; Karisa Raines, 21; Laci Stone, 18; and Tiago Sousa, 18.
Dayton Price, 19, and Hayden Underhill, 20, the two other people in the van, were listed in critical condition. Landsberg did not have an update on their condition Thursday.