2 Die, 7 Hurt in Bus Crash

An MTA bus headed north on the Hollywood Freeway jumped the center divider during the evening rush hour Thursday and plowed into southbound traffic, plunging down atop a motorcyclist and a pickup truck and triggering a chaotic pileup that left two dead people and seven injured.

Ten vehicles in addition to the bus were involved in the 5:10 p.m. accident. Debris was scattered over a quarter-mile and traffic was jammed for hours in both directions, authorities said.

John Martinez was on his way home from work at a North Hollywood casting agency and had just passed the bus, he said, when his Isuzu Rodeo was clipped by a car that had swerved to avoid the bus as it suddenly careened toward the center divider.

“I was spinning out of control, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the bus going over the wall,” said the shaken Martinez, 46. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, what other cars am I going to hit?’ It was awful. I just pray for the other people.”

The bus, which was carrying no passengers at the end of a shift working in the Universal City area, had just passed Burbank Boulevard in the fast lane of the California 170 portion of the Hollywood Freeway, north of the Ventura Freeway.

It may have begun its fatal slide when the driver swerved to avoid striking a car that cut in front him, California Highway Patrol officers and MTA executives said.

After crossing the carpool lane and crashing over the concrete divider, it landed on a motorcycle and a brown pickup truck, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said. A maroon mini-van slammed into the side of the bus, and became trapped underneath it, along with the pickup, as other cars crashed into one another in an attempt to avoid the wreckage.

The motorcyclist, whose twisted, bright red sport bike slid out from under the bus and came to a rest against the divider, was pronounced dead at the scene, as was a passenger in the pickup, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells.

After trying for more than an hour to extricate the driver of the pickup, who was still alive, firefighters used a crane to hoist the bus, and then dragged the truck and van from beneath it.

Six firefighters placed the driver on a rolling stretcher and whisked him down the center of the freeway to an emergency helicopter.

The man, whose name was not released, was in critical condition at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills. The driver and a passenger in the van, a man and a woman in their 30s, were listed in serious condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Two others involved in the pileup were treated at local hospitals and released, and one victim was treated at the scene, fire officials said. The bus driver also required treatment at the scene, police said.

At least 50 city firefighters, six rescue ambulances and one air ambulance were called in to handle the pileup.

The bus driver, 22-year-old Sergio Blancarte of Los Angeles, is a part-time employee who began work with the agency nine months ago and completed his probation period in April, MTA spokesman Steve Chesser said.

To become a bus driver, applicants undergo 90 days of training, including six to eight weeks of driving instruction.

After working in the Universal City area on Line 152, Blancarte was on his way back to the agency’s Division 8 facility in Canoga Park, Chesser said.

According to Chesser, Blancarte told police and MTA officials that he was headed north when he lost control, perhaps because a car cut in front of him.

The bus came to rest with its rear bumper still atop the battered divider, crossways to the traffic and blocking three of the four southbound lanes.

Blancarte was still being questioned at the scene late in the evening. Police and MTA officials said he would undergo routine drug and alcohol tests, but police emphasized that they were still investigating and no one had been charged.

By late evening, the southbound lanes of the freeway remained closed. Only the two slow lanes on the northbound side were reopened, and traffic continued to crawl out of the city.

On the southbound side, it took some drivers more than 1 1/2 hours to make it to an exit, and rush-hour traffic on nearby surface streets was jammed as well.

Times staff writers Eric Slater and Andrew Blankstein contributed to this story.