Report to Focus on Driver in Bus Crash : Angels: Venetz’s status during May 21 accident will be part of NTSB’s published results of investigation due out later this month.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s final report on the Angels’ May 21 bus crash, in which 13 people were injured and Manager Buck Rodgers was disabled for more than half the baseball season, is expected to focus on driver Carl Venetz’s possible impairment or misjudgment, a source familiar with the investigation said Monday.

The team was traveling from New York to Baltimore when the lead bus in the two-bus caravan veered off the road and into a grove of trees near Deptford Township, N.J. Rodgers sustained the most serious injuries, suffering a smashed right elbow, broken right wrist, fractured left kneecap and rib injuries. Although Venetz said at the time he had swerved to avoid debris in the road, no debris was found.

Alan Pollock, press officer for the NTSB, said passenger statements, police reports, diagrams of the accident, photographs of the scene and other evidence have been reviewed, and the reports will be put into the public docket for release, probably by the end of November. That evidence includes Venetz’s driving record and testimony.

Pollock also said it is normal for an accident investigation to take as long as 10 months because the NTSB has only four or five investigators to inquire into major accidents that occur around the country involving buses, trains and planes.

“Now, we’re just waiting for the head of the surface transportation division to sign off on an accident brief,” Pollock said. “I wouldn’t say it’s that far away. . . . It’s not that complicated an accident.”