Driver in Deadly Chile Tourist Bus Crash May Be Charged

The driver of a tour bus that crashed on a winding road, killing 12 elderly U.S. tourists and injuring two others, could face involuntary homicide charges after apparently dozing off at the wheel, investigators said Thursday.

“It looks like he fell asleep,” said Manuel Gonzalez, a prosecutor in this port city about 1,000 miles north of Santiago, the capital. “We’re looking at human error as the cause.”

The driver, Cristian Contreras Guzman, 31, survived the crash but was seriously injured and remained hospitalized here. A tour guide who survived said Contreras was new to the route.

Authorities and the sole survivor to speak publicly here Thursday downplayed earlier reports that the vehicle might have swerved to avoid a truck or was traveling at excessive speed.

“We weren’t going that fast and we weren’t behind our time,” one of the survivors, guide Ivan Guerra Morales, told reporters, recounting how he blacked out during the spectacular crash as the vehicle tumbled more than 650 feet into a ravine. “I don’t know what happened. We hadn’t had any problem.”

The passengers were returning to their Celebrity Cruises ship, Millennium, which had docked in Arica, a city on the Pacific coast near the Peruvian border that has been trying to attract cruise ships to increase tourism.

All the victims were part of a 64-member group organized by the Jewish service organization B’nai B’rith, said Dan Hanrahan, president of Celebrity Cruises. A B’nai B’rith official said most were from a Monroe Township, N.J., chapter.

The bus tour from the desert coast toward the soaring Andes mountain range was not among those offered by Celebrity Cruises, which is owned by Miami-based Royal Caribbean International, Hanrahan said.

“We don’t know when they made the reservations” for the shore excursion, Hanrahan told the Associated Press. “We do know they did not make the reservations on the ship.”

The company that ran the excursion, identified as Andino Tour, was a new firm that was not yet authorized to transport passengers, Oscar Santelices, director of Chile’s National Tourism Service, told reporters in the capital. It was unclear whether the company would face charges.

Officials said many tour operators, including unlicensed “pirate” agencies, regularly worked the port and hawked tours to passengers coming off cruise ships.

The bus, a 2006 Mercedes, was returning to Arica after a day trip to Lauca National Park when the accident occurred at 4:20 p.m. about 25 miles northeast of the city, officials said. Authorities described the road as winding and dangerous.

The vehicle plunged more than 650 feet from the highway, ejecting almost all of its passengers as it tumbled, according to news accounts here. Officials said it was extraordinary that anyone had survived.

At the time of the accident, said Guerra, the guide, he had left his seat alongside the driver and was making his way to the back of the bus to provide assistance to a tourist who had called him. Everything appeared normal, and the tour group had planned to stop at a valley known as Azapa to purchase olives.

“That’s when everything went black and we fell,” recalled Guerra, 40, who was the only person able to get up and call for help after regaining consciousness. “I woke up and I was thrown on the ground. I got up and all the tourists were dead. And I noticed the driver was trapped in the metal of the vehicle.”

The U.S. Embassy dispatched personnel here Thursday to ensure that the two injured passengers received adequate care and to arrange for the repatriation of the bodies.

“We’re just trying to make sure that the survivors get all the care they require, and that all the paperwork and details are completed in as expedited a manner as possible,” said John Vance, a spokesman with the U.S. Embassy in Santiago.

The two injured tourists -- identified by Celebrity Cruises as Harold Ruchelman, 68, and Bernard Diamond, 68 -- were listed in stable condition at Dr. Juan Noe Hospital in Arica.

The ship, which carried 1,536 guests and 920 crew members, had been scheduled to leave Arica on Wednesday evening for Lima, Peru, but didn’t depart until Thursday at 10 a.m. The boat was on a 14-night South American cruise that began March 19 in Valparaiso, Chile, and was scheduled to conclude April 2 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Before sailing from Arica on Thursday, the passengers and crew on the Millennium observed a moment of silence for the victims, the cruise line said. It said a special room aboard the ship, complete with Bibles and Jewish prayer books, was set aside for reflection.

The ship’s physician, nurse and concierge stayed behind to assist Chilean medical personnel at the hospital, Celebrity Cruises officials said.

A special assistance team from the company, including a rabbi, arrived in Arica on Thursday to help tend to the injured passengers and relatives of victims who come to Chile, Hanrahan said.

Celebrity Cruises identified the dead as Marvin Bier, 79; Shirley Bier, 76; Miriam Diamond, 75; Maria Eggers, 71; Hans Eggers, 72; Ira Greenfield, 67; Linda Greenfield, 63; Arthur Kovar, 67; Frieda Kovar, 74; Barbara Rubin, 69; Robert Rubin, 72; and Carole Ruchelman, 63.

Chinga reported from Arica and Vergara from Santiago. Times staff writers Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires and John-Thor Dahlburg in Miami contributed to this report.