Cottonwood, Minnesota bus crash
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The Cottonwood bus crash occurred on the afternoon of February 19, 2008 that involved a school bus carrying 28 students from Lakeview Public Schools near Cottonwood in southwestern Minnesota, United States. The bus was struck on its passenger side by a minivan that drove through a stop sign, which caused the bus to fall over onto a pickup truck, killing four students and injuring 17.
Cottonwood bus crash | |
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Details | |
Date | February 19, 2008 3:25pm (CST) |
Location | Cottonwood, Minnesota |
Country | United States |
Line | School bus |
Operator | Palmer Bus Service |
Owner | Palmer Bus Service |
Incident type | Bus crash |
Cause | A minivan ran a stop sign colliding with a school bus, causing the school bus to roll onto another vehicle. |
Statistics | |
Bus | 1, 1999 International School Bus |
Vehicles | 1, 1998 Plymouth Voyager minivan; 1, 2007 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck |
Passengers | 28 passengers, 3 drivers |
Deaths | 4 |
Injured | 17 |
The crash gained significant national coverage at the time and further fueled the immigration debate in the United States, due to the minivan driver's illegal immigration status.[1] The driver, Olga Franco del Cid, was later found to have entered the country illegally and using a false name. She was convicted on August 24, 2008 on all 24 counts related to the crash and sentenced to 12 years in prison. After serving eight years of her sentence, she was released and deported from the United States in 2016. In 2019, Franco del Cid was arrested for re-entering the country illegally and sentenced to another two years in prison. She will be deported when her sentence is completed.[2]
This was the deadliest school-bus related crash to occur in the state since 1997, when four students were killed in a crash in Monticello.[3]