Three years after a deadly Chippewa Falls High School marching band bus crash , the National Transportation Safety Board announced its conclusions Tuesday.
Five people, including the band's director were killed when the bus hit an overturned semi lying across I-94 near Osseo in the early morning hours of October 16, 2005.
At a meeting of the NTSB in Washington D.C., acting Chair Mark Rosenker read the board's findings, saying the probable cause of the accident was the truck driver falling asleep and losing control of his semi. The report says the truck driver was likely fatigued because he didn't take full advantage of the rest time offered while he was off duty. The report says there were also "insufficient visual cues" to alert the bus driver to the presence of the overturned semi on the highway.
Truck driver Michael Kozlowski was found innocent of criminal charges last year, but there are several civil lawsuits pending.
The board also made recommendations to prevent such accidents in the future, including installing technology in trucks to detect when drivers are falling asleep.
