A school bus belonging to Andrews ISD and transporting a high school marching band was involved in a fatal crash with a pickup truck late Friday afternoon in West Texas.
The bus was from Andrews High School in Andrews, Texas, near the New Mexico border. Its passengers, twenty-five of whom were students, were on their way to a football game when a pickup truck headed the wrong direction hit them head-on.
The accident occurred in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 20 near mile marker 179 in Big Spring, around 250 miles West of Fort Worth.
A photo posted on Facebook shows a bus bearing the words “Andrews Mustangs” written on the side crashed into the ditch near mile marker 179, along with another vehicle that appears to be on fire.
Comments on the post say the bus was transporting Andrews High School band members to a playoff football game in Sweetwater, which Andrews ISD later confirmed.
Texas Department of Public Safety Sergeant Justin Baker stated the crash was caused when a pickup truck traveling westbound on the eastbound highway slammed head-on into the bus and burst into flames.
Of the three deaths in the accident, two were the drivers of the vehicles involved. The driver of the bus, Marc Elbert Boswell, 69, and the driver of the Ford F-350, Nathan Paul Haile, 59, were both pronounced dead at the scene.
Eleven students and one adult from the bus were transported to Scenic Mountain Medical Center in Big Spring, where they were treated for injuries that do not appear to be life-threatening.
Three others from the crash, one adult and two students, were airlifted to University Medical Center in Lubbock, about 95 miles north of the crash site, for treatment of more severe injuries.
The two students are in critical but stable condition, according to Baker. The adult was Andrews High School band director Darin Johns, 53, who died of his injuries in the hospital later that Friday.
The game between Andrews and Springtown in Sweetwater was postponed after the accident. According to Governor Greg Abbot, state officials are investigating the crash.
