Bus Hurtles Out of Control at Rush Hour; 3 Die, 9 Hurt

Three people were killed and nine injured when a commuter bus accelerated out of control across a crowded downtown intersection at the height of the afternoon rush hour Tuesday.

Police Chief Frank Jordan said the bus driver, who suffered only slight injuries, told investigators that the gas pedal stuck. There was no indication that the driver was intoxicated, Jordan said.

“It’s not a pretty sight,” the police chief noted.

As the driver left the Transbay Terminal, the main depot for suburban commuter buses, witnesses heard the engine roar and saw the bus careen through a red light, killing two pedestrians in a crosswalk and injuring others. The third person who died appeared to have been on the sidewalk.

The runaway bus, which left shortly after 5 p.m., slammed into at least two cars, a line of trees and a light pole before coming to rest on the sidewalk halfway up Fremont Street from Mission Street.

The bus dragged one of the cars, a Jaguar, for half a block, pinning two passengers inside. They did not appear to be seriously hurt. The handful of people on the bus also were uninjured.

The 1980 Flyer bus is owned by the San Mateo Transit Authority, which runs buses between San Francisco and the peninsula to the south. It was maintained by Greyhound, which has a contract to operate one-fifth of the fleet.

“I thought it was a plane falling at first. Everything was so hectic,” said Russ Koontz, 77, who was selling newspapers from a stand at the bus stop where the bus came to a halt after piling into a half-dozen trees.

“Thank God for the trees,” Koontz said, “or he might have hit a lot more people and cars.”

The bus stop had been lined with people who jumped away. “They were shook up, of course, hysterical,” Koontz said. But he added that none of them appeared to be badly hurt.

Moments before the bus pulled away from the terminal, television reporters for KRON-TV, the local NBC affiliate, finished putting away their equipment after filming a separate story.

“I heard the bus accelerate and saw it powering through there, hitting people and dragging some people with him,” said cameraman Rick Greenwell.