On Monday, March 4, 2024, about 5:50 p.m. eastern standard time, a 2022 IC 77-passenger school bus occupied by a driver and 19 students and operated by the Calhoun County Board of Education was traveling south on State Highway 16 (SH 16) near Millstone in Calhoun County, West Virginia. As the driver navigated a left-hand curve, the bus departed the right side of the paved roadway and entered an earthen drainage channel with a culvert along the right side of the road. The right-front tire struck the end of the culvert; the bus then struck a fence and began to yaw counterclockwise as it reentered the roadway. The right-rear tire struck the culvert, and the bus rolled a quarter turn onto its right side before coming to rest across both lanes of SH-16. Three students on the bus sustained serious injuries, 16 students sustained minor injuries, and the driver was not injured.
At the time of the crash, the Millstone school bus driver was impaired by alcohol, which resulted in his loss of control. We found that implementing alcohol detection systems on school buses can prevent alcohol-impaired driving by school bus drivers.
We also found that unbelted bus passengers were injured from impacting other occupants and the school bus interior during the rollover sequence. Lap/shoulder belts, had they been installed and properly worn, would have provided the best protection for the students by keeping the occupants within the protective seating compartment.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the Millstone, West Virginia, crash was the school bus driver’s alcohol impairment resulting in his loss of vehicle control and the school bus’s roadway departure and rollover. Contributing to the severity of the passenger injuries was the lack of passenger lap/shoulder belts on the large school bus.We determined that the probable cause of the Millstone, West Virginia, crash was the school bus driver’s alcohol impairment resulting in his loss of vehicle control and the school bus’s roadway departure and rollover. Contributing to the severity of the passenger injuries was the lack of passenger lap/shoulder belts on the large school bus.
