Mar 072010
The company that owns a tour bus that rolled over Friday on Interstate 10, killing six people, has a history of safety violations, no federal record of insurance and could not legally carry passengers in Arizona, The Arizona Republic has learned.
Transportation-safety records and federal regulators confirm the only two buses owned by Tierra Santa Inc. of Van Nuys, Calif., were not licensed to carry passengers across state lines.
But Tierra Santa’s buses have been hauling passengers from Mexico across the Southwest to California, even though they were stopped and cited three times last year by state and federal transportation inspectors in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Federal regulators were unable to say Friday why the buses were allowed to continue operating.
