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The driver of a pickup truck that crashed into a golf team van in March, killing nine people in Texas, was a 38-year-old man, not his 13-year-old son, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday, correcting information the agency had issued shortly after the fiery head-on crash.
DNA results from the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed the driver was the father, according to the NTSB, which said its March 17 statement that the son was behind the wheel was “based on information available at the time.”
The NTSB also said tests found methamphetamine in the father’s blood, although investigators said it was too early to know if it contributed to the crash.
The coach of Southwestern University’s golf team and six students from the New Mexico school were killed, as were the father and son in the pickup truck. Two other students were seriously injured in the crash in Andrews County.
Federal investigators said the man, driving a 2007 Dodge 2500, was southbound when the pickup crossed into the northbound lane of FM 1788, which has a 75 mph speed limit.
From March: 13-year-old driving in Texas crash that kills 9, NTSB says
At its March briefing, the NTSB said the pickup’s left front tire, the spare, blew out, pulling the truck across the highway’s centerline.
But in a preliminary report released Thursday, the agency said “to date, the investigation has found no evidence of a sudden or rapid loss of tire pressure or other indicators of catastrophic failure of the pickup’s front left tire.”
Robert Molloy, director of the NTSB’s Office of Highway Safety, said Thursday that “out of concern for the family” he would not release details about the early evidence collected by crash investigators and the information that led the agency to mischaracterize who was driving.
Molloy said the catastrophic damage from the crash and the resulting fire “makes it difficult to understand some of the details of the crash.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety, which is a party to the investigation, did not immediately respond to questions about the circumstances.
Regarding the condition of the left front tire, Molloy said that although preliminary evidence pointed to a catastrophic failure, subsequent disassembly and examination of the wheel and its components by NTSB investigators, as well as other road evidence, provided no evidence of such failure.
The NTSB, known for its caution and rigor in its investigations of complex airline, marine and roadside crashes, said preliminary information released Thursday “is subject to change and may contain errors” that will be corrected once the investigation is complete and final report published.
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