The State - News from May 5, 1987

The driver of a tour bus that plunged into a rushing Sierra Nevada river last May 30 pleaded innocent in Bridgeport to manslaughter charges in the deaths of 21 elderly passengers. Ernst Klimeck, 48, probably will not face trial because a plea bargain is being negotiated, according to defense attorney Robert Courtney. The Starline Sightseeing Tours bus plunged off U.S. 395 into the Walker River while returning from a charter trip to Lake Tahoe, Reno and Carson City with 40 passengers, most of them residents of a Santa Monica retirement home.