Driver Sought in Crash Fatal to 8 : Tragedy: He fled the scene after hitting a church van. The owner of the pickup is sought for questioning. His wife reported the vehicle stolen after the accident.

The pickup truck driver suspected of causing the deadliest automobile crash in Orange County history remained at large Monday after fleeing the accident, which left eight dead and 11 injured, most of them parishioners headed in a van to an evening church service.

Authorities said the 1984 Chevrolet pickup, which slammed into a van carrying up to 18 people from the Non-Sectarian Church of God, was reported stolen Sunday night by the truck owner’s wife. The report was taken about an hour after the 6 p.m. collision near the heart of Santa Ana’s bustling Civic Center.

But police were unable to find the truck owner, David Mendoza, on Monday and said they wanted to question him about his whereabouts at the time of the crash.

The accident occurred as the van entered an intersection and was struck by the pickup. The force of the impact sent the van spinning through the intersection, hurling its passengers out a back door.

A BMW that was behind the truck was also involved in the accident, although authorities said it remained unclear Monday whether the car also hit the van.

Although law enforcement officials said the driver of the van, Pastor Octavio Valentin, did not appear to be at fault in the accident, questions were raised about the safety of the vehicle because two makeshift bench seats were not bolted down, police said, and passengers did not have seat belts.

Most of the passengers in the van were thrown from the vehicle after its rear doors were flung open by the force of the impact, police said.

“If the van had had seats like in a regular cargo van and the people in there were wearing seat belts . . . they probably would have gotten bruised and battered, maybe even broken up,” one Santa Ana police official said. “But there would not have been any deaths. It wouldn’t have happened.”

Officials with the California Highway Patrol said there are no laws prohibiting bench seats or requiring seat belts because the van was being used to transport more than 10 people and qualified as a bus. But they also said the van had been ordered out of service by a CHP inspector last November during a routine checkup and had not been approved for use before Sunday’s accident.

Valentin, who was wearing a seat belt during the accident and was not seriously injured, insisted that the makeshift seats were bolted down.

“The seats were bolted (down) but could have gotten out with the crash,” he said.

Valentin often ferried Spanish-speaking congregants to his Non-Sectarian Church of God, also known as Iglesia de Dios, during the five years that he leased worship space from the First United Methodist Church of Santa Ana.

He said Monday he remembers crossing the intersection and, “like a flash,” seeing the white truck headed toward his van. He recalled half turning to his passengers and yelling, “It’s going to hit! It’s going to hit” but there was little he could do to avoid the crash.

Still in shock, he said: “I just can’t believe it. I can’t explain what happened . . . but the light was green all the way.”

Meanwhile, the families of the victims began grappling with grief after finally learning late Sunday about the fate of their loved ones. Church services have been suspended for one week, and many in the congregation of about 70 parishioners were trying to figure out Monday how they were going to pay for funeral services.

The dead were Sonia Castro, 30, of Santa Ana; Rutilia Oliva, 31, of Garden Grove, who waseight months pregnant; Ericka Mendez, 16, of Garden Grove, a junior at Santiago High School;Julio Guzman, 27, of Santa Ana; Carlos Oliva, 4, of Garden Grove; Iris Roman, 13, of Santa Ana; and Daniel Oliva, 2, of Garden Grove. Most of the victims came to the United States from Guatemala about two years ago.

Those who died were devoted churchgoers who placed commitment to Christianity above everything else, relatives said.

“By going to church, his way of being got better and more positive,” Juan Guzman, 33, said of his brother, Julio.

Sandra Guzman, Julio’s sister-in-law, was also in the van. She survived the crash with a bruised shoulder and some pain in an ear, and was released after treatment at Doctor’s Hospital in Santa Ana on Sunday night.

“God guarded me, he protected me. It wasn’t my time to die,” Sandra Guzman said throughtears Monday afternoon at her home in Santa Ana. “Julio--his time came. God said there would be no more Julio.”