I-Team: Are church buses safe?
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Church leaders at the Smyrna Baptist Church in Lumberton paid $109,000 for a 2007 46-passenger Starcraft XLT church bus. They're hoping to use it to take some of their members on a trip to Washington, but now they're waiting to learn if it's safe enough to drive following word of a recall.
"We do traveling with the seniors and the youth and everybody in the church," explained church treasurer Larry Locklear.
The manufacturer is recalling 2004-2009 Starcraft XLT models because certain models could fail to conform to federal government requirements for the vehicle weight.
The recall came after a lawsuit by a church in Shreveport, Louisiana. A youth group from the First Baptist Church there was on its way to a ministry summer camp in the summer of 2009 when a tire on their 42- passenger Starcraft XLT bus blew out. The bus rolled over one and a half times.
Twelve-year-old Maggie Lee Henson and 14-year-old Brandon Ugarte were thrown from the bus and killed.
"I was in complete shock and I said 'No, they made a mistake. It's not my son. It can't be my son,'" recalled mother Jenny Ugarte.
The rest of the 21 passengers on board the bus were injured.
"These buses are overloaded, right out of the box, they're not designed to handle the number of occupants that are in the vehicle," said consumer advocate Sean Kane.
The injured people and the parents of the two children who were killed sued the bus manufacturer. In preparation for the lawsuit, an engineer weighed a mid-sized bus that the plaintiffs claim was similar to the one that crashed. Lawyers found one at a Baptist church in Washington, North Carolina.
"What we found was that it in fact weighed more than the gross vehicle weight rating, so it wasn't in compliance with federal law. In fact, it was close to 600 pounds overweight," said engineer Mark Arndt.
An overweight bus can be dangerous because it puts stress on the brakes, tires, and steering.
"We were just shocked. We were just shocked," said Pastor Jimmy Moore - whose church loaned its bus to be weighed.
Moore said he had no idea the bus could be too heavy and contacted the manufacturer Forest River.
"They offered to take some seats out of our bus to make it a smaller vehicle and to compensate us some, monetarily, for losing some seats, but we weren't interested," said Moore.
In the end, the manufacturer decided to retrofit the church bus with a new axle to stabilize it.
The I-Team contacted Forest River about the Louisiana lawsuit which was settled. In an email, the company said the bus was far below capacity in terms of passenger and cargo (luggage) weight. It also said the tires on the Louisiana bus were under inflated and the design or weight rating of the bus played no role in the accident.
Starcraft buses are built in two stages. The chassis are built by a truck maker like Chevrolet or Ford, and then manufacturers like Forest River construct and attach the body of the bus -- including the seats.
The chassis maker certifies the bus for a certain weight, but the body manufacturer can make changes that can exceed that weight.
"What you have is a perfect storm. You got a low-cost vehicle, generally that was affordable ... you've got standards that are out of date ... added to the fact that you've really got really a stepchild of a vehicle that the regulators aren't even paying attention to," said Kane. "When you put that together with an overload condition, you're going to have a disaster."
At Smyrna Baptist Church in Lumberton, church leaders say Forest River told them their bus would be overweight if they had passengers in every seat.
"The chassis on your bus is not designed to carry the amount of passengers you're going to carry," Locklear said he was told.
He said Forest River told him the bus cannot be repaired. Five seats need to be removed and the church can get back $1,500 for each of those seats.
"We bought what we wanted and it's what we got. Now you tell me you're going to change it, that's not going to work, we're not going to accept that," said Locklear.
This isn't the first time buses made by Forest River have been recalled. In March, a federal court in Charleston approved a class action settlement against the manufacturer. Forest River agreed to recall and fix 8,000 small and mid-sized buses made between 2002 and 2007. At issue was the failure of the manufacturer to weigh its bus with a full tank of fuel as required by federal law before labeling the total weight of the bus.
UPDATE
The company that makes the recalled buses is facing major penalties from the federal government. Forest River has agreed to pay a $35 million penalty for failing to report early warning data, and failing to launch two safety recalls in a timely fashion.
