The Nation - News from May 29, 1988

The gasoline tank on a church bus that erupted into flames after being hit head-on by a pickup truck near Carrollton, Ky., was ruptured by a piece of the bus’s springs, a newspaper said. Twenty-seven people--mostly teen-agers--were killed in the May 14 disaster on Interstate 71. The driver of the pickup, Larry W. Mahoney, 34, has pleaded innocent to 27 counts of murder in the case. The Kentucky Post of Covington quoted an unidentified source as saying the leaf-spring assembly broke loose from the bus’s frame, causing a 3-inch gash in the gas tank. The newspaper quoted the source as saying that a protective cage required on modern buses might not have prevented the tragedy.