 So we're here today to discuss the incident that occurred yesterday, the fatal bus accident on Penny Boulevard out at DIA. That happened at approximately 4 p.m. My unit was notified that there was at least one fatality involved and multiple serious bodily injury accidents or injuries. When we arrived at least 15 people had been transported off of the bus to area hospitals at least three of the area hospitals and a number of individuals either with minor injuries or no injury remained on scene and the driver was pronounced deceased at the scene. The investigation involved sending detectives to the area hospitals in addition to the scene and interviewing individuals at DIA to determine what happened in this incident. Sergeant Farr was the on scene supervisor of that investigation and I'm going to let him explain to you what he found there. So upon arrival there at the airport came into contact with the the bus we discovered that it had made a where a left turn takes you to level four east that's normally the passenger pickup area that bus had left the right side of the roadway and drove into one of the pillars that supports the six east ramp. So it was a raised roadway pillar that that was struck. There were several witnesses that were still on scene. They had been removed to the conference center there at the airport so I had a chance to talk to them after I had a initial look at the scene. So here's what we learned. We know that there were three buses that were picking up students. They are legacy high school students and they are part of the football program along with some coaches some adult chaperones parents grandparents so a number of adults and students distributed throughout all three buses. Our bus that was involved in the crash was the lead bus meaning that was the bus that was initially leaving the terminal building heading out on pinia boulevard. I'm told by witnesses that they were ready to go home that is they were to take pinia boulevard to e470 and back up to broomfield where they were going to be dropping off at the school. Instead of leaving pinia outbound the bus driver took the return to terminal loop. So there's multiple lanes of pinia boulevard as you leave the terminal. There are three lanes that permit a right turn take you outbound pinia two lanes to take you to the return to terminal loop. One of those lanes is shared by both the right and left turn. So if you can imagine that fork if you are in lane number two that is numbering them from left to right that lane number two has an option of turning left or right. The other lanes are must turns so the bus was in that lane and instead of making the right turn to outbound pinia made the left turn on to the return to terminal. My question for my witnesses there at the scene was why was something forgotten do we know why that occurred and no one knows for certain there were a lot of guesses a lot of folks thought well maybe we forgot something forgot a student forgot some equipment but nobody could tell me certainly why the bus driver made that turn. As they approached then the forks that take you from four east to six east or five east if you have commercial motor vehicle permission to enter five east as those three forks come up the bus driver remained to the right which would have taken them to four east and instead of making that final turn drove off the roadway and straight into a pillar. Now the scene evidence showed us that the bus did make a straight line movement to that pillar that is in the dirt the tire tracks did not show any sign of left or right turns simply drove straight off the roadway into that pillar that's how the crash occurred what we're left with now is trying to explain why this crash occurred quite frankly there's there's a big mystery there that we are in the process of attempting to answer and we may not get all the answers we're looking for there simply because one of our most important witnesses and that is the driver the bus was declared deceased as a result of this crash so we're now left with mechanical inspection of the bus was there anything wrong mechanically with the bus I have a certified bus inspector who is taking on that task as we speak he's preparing that task so we should have that inspection started underway sometime today there's also then the case of as we've speculated was this bus driver having difficulty that is a medical condition well now we've got to start looking at background speaking to family and friends and doctors if we can get them to talk to us do we know anything about medical condition at the time of the crash or leading up to it so that's going to be additional follow-up we don't have those answers yet either and as difficult as it may be was this an intentional act was it purposeful there's certainly no evidence for me to believe that but certainly it's one of the things we have to be open to is is this an intentional act and quite frankly we don't have solid answers to any of those questions any questions about the scene evidence or what we learn there at the scene you know those measurements were taken by my detectives I haven't reviewed those so I don't know what they are I would say probably two school bus links it appears as though I could have placed that same school bus behind itself and not made the roadway so I would say about the links of two school buses interesting question we we've had the opportunity to ask many of the witnesses who have been driving and I rely on their experience as as folks who who have some experience behind the wheel how fast do you think the bus was going for folks who were actually on that bus and folks who were following it and I got a very consistent answer of 30 to 40 miles an hour for most everybody and there's evidence at the scene that certainly supports that is 30 to 40 miles an hour appropriate for that section no my best recollection of traveling that myself is that we are down to about 15 miles an hour for that section as we are getting to the four east level where again we're going to have folks walking so speed limits have been brought down very far now when I say 15 miles an hour that's my recollection it may be that if we go up there and traverse it we'll find that I'm wrong but we do know it was lower than 30 or 40 miles an hour is the posted speed limit for that section you know there's certainly no way for me to know that absolutely the crash was significant and the injuries to to the driver significant now does that mean medically there was an issue and she was deceased prior to that I don't know that we'll ever be able to find that out I certainly have had that discussion with our coroners in cases similar to this and sometimes the condition of the body post crash does not permit them to say for sure that there was a medical issue either in the heart or even the brain so it may be the body is simply not in condition for us to know that in this case distraction well I will share with you that I've had again conversations with more than 15 people who were on that bus and we covered that tell me about the condition of the driver as you were heading off road tell me was there any discussion and all of them say that it seemed to be a normal trip up until they started to feel the bumps of going off road and then shortly thereafter there was the impact and that there was no statements or no conversation with the bus driver about where are we going and there was no outburst that they reported to me so from this standpoint that part's a mystery we won't know that until the coroners now the toxicology report will come back it's that's usually about a six to eight week waiting period so we are waiting those what well there is a requirement for a physical they have to be cleared to have a commercial driver's license a cdl we are working with the school district to obtain those records when was her last medical evaluation and what were the results of that so we're awaiting those and the school district has been fully cooperative with us so let me let me say that that Adams 12 has been very cooperative with us and they are assisting in this investigation really at this point we've allowed them an opportunity to come to terms with what they're dealing with we will insert ourselves and we will have that conversation but we want to be respectful to what they're going through right now that's going to be part of our mechanical inspection to determine that so I don't know yet certainly if if there is some it would become part of the case you know I uh I have to say I I drive to the airport I fly in and out of there all the time myself I certainly don't have any difficulty from a personal standpoint from a professional standpoint I know that we have collisions out there most of them relate to human error so is there an engineering problem out there I don't know that I'm qualified to say that I would say that all the crashes that I have to respond out there to have some element of human misadventure that causes most of the crashes so that's part of the background how many times is she taking this trip I don't know the answer to that yet is this her first time or is this her tenth time so that would certainly go to answer that question I don't know that you know the damage was so significant I didn't get a chance to review that yet I don't know the answer to that but uh understand that at the reported speed of 35 miles an hour I'm striking a brick wall that had no give the crushed damage to the front of the bus was significant and as a result of that it was very difficult to get in there I left the scene prior to uh the full extraction so I didn't have a play part in that my detectives would know that and obviously they're still conducting some of that background it is our bus driver is a female in her 40s we're not ready to release her any more information about her identity just yet I've had a detective who was able to review some of the video at the aob and he does not report any interference with any other vehicles the ones I see are severe because that's my job as a traffic investigator uh it would take a look at all the accident reports filed out there to know that I do know that you know we have automobiles and pedestrians interacting on at least four levels out there if not actually six if you include the commercial motor vehicle level and uh at times through distraction or just carelessness humans and vehicles will come into contact with each other just from the way that uh we cross those lengths of traffic to get from parking into the terminal building so I would say a vast majority of those don't need me so they're probably not uh as severe as this one certainly