Southern California

LOS ANGELES >> More than a year after a fiery wreck between a FedEx semi-truck and a charter bus killed 10, including five high school students, authorities are expected to address the biggest remaining question on Friday: What caused the crash?

The California Highway Patrol is set to release the results of its 13-month investigation at an afternoon news conference after the agency meets with family members of those killed in the April 2014 head-on collision in Orland, about 100 miles north of Sacramento.

The dead were five high school students from the Los Angeles area, three chaperones, and the drivers of the FedEx tractor-trailer and the bus. The bus was full of prospective Humboldt State University students heading for a campus visit.

What has been unclear is why the semi gradually veered across the interstate median and into oncoming traffic. Investigators previously said they found no evidence that the truck driver, 32-year-old Tim Evans, attempted to slow down or swerve.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is conducting a separate investigation, released documents earlier this month showing Evans had no drugs or alcohol in his system and was reportedly in good health.

Those records also included uncorroborated witness accounts offering insight into the investigation.

One passenger seated three rows behind the bus driver said he saw Evans with his head down and slumped toward the door immediately before the crash. Another driver on the highway said the semi’s left turn signal lit up before it changed lanes and drifted across the median.

A couple in a sedan sideswiped by the truck before the crash reported seeing flames coming out of one of its trailers, but board investigators found no physical evidence to support that.

The National Transportation Safety Board could release its final report this summer, an agency spokesman said last week.

The California Highway Patrol will release Friday the findings of a 13-month investigation into a fatal collision between a truck and a charter bus that killed 10 people and injured more than 30 others in rural Orland.

The crash, which occurred on Interstate 5 on April 10, 2014, involved a tour bus carrying dozens of students from Southern California high schools and a FedEx big rig.

Adrian Castro, El Monte High School senior was one of the five students killed along with three adult chaperones and the drivers of the bus and FedEx truck.

The tour bus was one of three bringing students to Humboldt State University for a prospective student event. The other two buses were not involved in the crash.

CHP officials will release the results of their investigation at 2:30 p.m. at the Hacienda Heights Community Center, 1234 Valencia Ave.

A preliminary report released a few weeks after the collision found that both drivers began their work days in Sacramento. The FedEx driver had delivered two trailers and was on a return trip with two other trailers when he lost control and crossed the median into oncoming traffic.

The bus was chartered to bring Los Angeles-area high school seniors to Humboldt. Its driver took over the trip in Sacramento.

The report by the National Transportation Safety Board did not address why the driver lost control on the evening of April 10.

HONOLULU >> The military on Wednesday said a second Marine has died of injuries he received after an Osprey aircraft crashed during a training exercise last weekend in Hawaii.

Lance Cpl. Matthew Determan of Maricopa, Arizona, was among several people who were injured when the MV-22 Osprey went down at Bellows Air Force Station outside Honolulu on Sunday.

The military said in a statement that Determan, 21, died on Tuesday.

“Our country and our Corps are poorer for his loss, but his example will continue to inspire us,” said Col. Vance L. Cryer, the commander of the 15th Expeditionary Unit.

The death of Lance Cpl. Joshua Barron, 24, of Spokane, Washington, had been announced earlier.

The Osprey, which can fly like a helicopter and a fixed-wing airplane, went down with 21 Marines and a Navy corpsman on board.

Two other Marines are still hospitalized in stable condition, Capt. Brian Block said Wednesday.

The Osprey had taken off from the USS Essex, a Navy ship 100 miles offshore. It was flying to Oahu to drop off infantry Marines for training on land, said Block, a spokesman for the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The crash didn’t stop the unit’s exercises, Block said. The Marines also don’t plan to ground their fleet of Ospreys, despite calls to do so from the governor of Okinawa, Japan, where many of the aircraft are based.

There was still no word on a cause of the crash in the latest statement.

The Ospreys took part this week in the inaugural U.S. Pacific Command Amphibious Leaders Symposium at Bellows Air Force Station on Oahu. However, the training exercise that included the crash was not part of that event.

The Osprey is a tilt-rotor aircraft that can take off and land like a helicopter but flies like an airplane, which gives it a longer range than traditional helicopters.

By Doug Saunders, Staff Writer

California Highway Patrol has reported a crash on the eastbound 10 freeway at the northbound 15 freeway connector in Ontario.

Shortly after 7:30 a.m. a big rig and a Toyota Prius collided, CHP traffic logs show.

Authorities say the big rig fled the scene. No injuries have been reported.

BASSETT >> A collision involving a tractor trailer and a car on the northbound 605 Freeway sent a driver to the hospital on Tuesday.

The crash, which occurred north of Valley Boulevard shortly before 8 a.m., shut down two lanes for nearly an hour.

The California Highway Patrol didn’t yet have details on the cause of the accident.

CHP Officer Pat Gomez said the car overturned several times after impact. Firefighters used the Jaws of Life to free the trapped driver and transported her by helicopter to a hospital.

He did not know her exact condition, but he said she was not critical.

CHP Officer Monica Posada said a SigAlert was issued at 8:18 a.m. for the carpool lane and the number one lane. At one point, all northbound lanes were closed so the helicopter can land.

The CHP canceled the SigAlert at 9:15 a.m.

MENTONE >> Sheriff’s deputies arrested a 20-year-old Mentone man on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon not a firearm after they say he struck a deputy’s vehicle with his motor bike over the weekend.

Family members, however, say it was a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy who caused the crash, pointing to a YouTube video that shows a deputy’s vehicle colliding with the motorcyclist Saturday afternoon.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said Monday that deputies arrested Jon Dundee Hutchinson, 20, of Mentone after a 10-minute pursuit that began Saturday when a deputy saw Hutchinson pull out of the parking lot of the Mill Creek Cattle Company steakhouse on an unregistered dirt bike.

The deputy attempted to pull Hutchinson over, but he fled traveling at a high rate of speed, Miller said.

“He was driving on the wrong side of the road when the motorcyclist struck the patrol car,” Miller said.

In a release, Miller noted the lights were flashing and the siren was on the deputy’s vehicle.

“He travelled on the wrong side of the road numerous times, running stop signs and fleeing into the orange groves,” in a statement from the department.

Officials say Hutchinson was taken to Redlands Community Hospital, where he was evaluated. He suffered minor abrasions.

A bystander recorded the incident on video and has since posted it to YouTube. The shaky, nearly four-minute video shows the end of the pursuit, when the patrol car and the motorcycle collide on Opal Avenue.

In the recording, witnesses can be heard shouting and swearing: “Why the f— did they hit him?” “Hey, you guys are chumps!”

On Monday, Hutchinson’s mother, Jaymie Branham, said her son suffered a neck fracture in the incident. She said the pursuit occurred after her son made an obscene gesture at a deputy.

“Did they have to use such deadly force?” she said in an interview Monday. “By no means should he almost lose his life because of this. I don’t understand why they had to be so aggressive.”

In the video, it’s unclear how the collision occurred, and Branham said she has not heard from the sheriff’s department.

“They haven’t honestly explained anything to us,” she said.

Miller said she did not know if a dash camera was installed in the deputy’s vehicle.

Hutchinson is being held at West Valley Detention Center in lieu of $100,000 bail. The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident, Miller said.

PHILADELPHIA >> Amtrak trains began rolling on the busy Northeast Corridor early Monday, the first time in almost a week after a deadly crash in Philadelphia, and officials vowed to have safer trains and tracks while investigators worked to determine the cause of the derailment.

Amtrak resumed service along the corridor with a 5:30 a.m. southbound train leaving New York City. The first northbound train, scheduled to leave Philadelphia at 5:53 a.m., was delayed and pulled out of 30th Street Station at 6:07 a.m. Both trains arrived at their destinations about 30 minutes behind schedule.

About three dozen passengers boarded the New York-bound train in Philadelphia, and Mayor Michael Nutter was on hand to see the passengers and train off.

All Acela Express, Northeast Regional and other services also resumed.

Amtrak officials said Sunday that trains along the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston would return to service in “complete compliance” with federal safety orders following last week’s deadly derailment.

Amtrak President Joseph Boardman said staff and crew worked around the clock to restore service following Tuesday night’s crash that killed eight people and injured more than 200 others.

Boardman said Sunday that Amtrak would be offering a “safer service.”

In Philadelphia on Monday, Nutter stood on the platform, greeting passengers and crew members. He pulled out his cellphone and took pictures as the train rolled out.

“It’s great to be back,” said Christian Milton of Philadelphia. “I’ve never had any real problems with Amtrak. I’ve been traveling it for over 10 years. There’s one accident in 10 years. Something invariably is going to happen somewhere along the lines. I’m not worried about it.”

Milton said he’d think about the victims and maybe say a prayer as the train navigated the curve where the derailment happened.

Tom Carberry, of Philadelphia, praised the agencies involved in restoring service.

“My biggest takeaway was the under-promise and over-deliver, and the surprise of having it come back this morning when that wasn’t expected,” Carberry said. “That was a good thing for Amtrak.”

At New York City’s Penn Station early Monday, police with dogs flanked the escalator as a smattering of passengers showed their tickets to a broadly smiling Amtrak agent and headed down to the platform.

A sign outside the train flashed “All Aboard” in red letters.

The conductor gave a broad all-clear wave, stepped inside and the train glided out of the station.

Passenger Raphael Kelly of New York, looking relaxed, said he was “feeling fine” and had “no worries.”

Kelly, who takes Amtrak to Philadelphia weekly, said with a smile that if he did have any concerns, “I have to get over it.”

Amtrak spokesman Craig Schultz said it was important to restore service, calling the Northeast Corridor “an economic engine here on the East Coast.”

Almost 20 people injured in the train crash remain in hospitals, five in critical condition. All are expected to survive.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board have focused on the acceleration of the train as it approached the curve, finally reaching 106 mph as it entered the 50-mph stretch north of central Philadelphia and only managing to slow down slightly before the crash.

The Amtrak engineer, who was among those injured in the crash, has told authorities that he does not recall anything in the few minutes before it happened.

Associated Press writers Kiley Armstrong in New York City and Shawn Marsh in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

RIVERSIDE >> Authorities say one of the six U.S. Marines aboard a helicopter that crashed during a relief mission in earthquake-hit Nepal was identified as a 30-year-old from Riverside County.

A joint military task force said Sunday that Sgt. Eric M. Seaman was one of six U.S. Marines and two Nepalese soldiers who died when their helicopter crashed May 12.

The wreckage of the UH-1 “Huey” was found Friday following days of intense searching in the mountains northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.

Seaman enlisted in the Marines in 2009. He served with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Camp Pendleton.

The Press-Enterprise reports that small American flags were posted in the front yard of Seaman’s home in Murrieta on Sunday. A sign near the door asked for privacy for the family.

INDUSTRY >> Coroner’s officials Sunday released the named of a Baldwin Park man and an Ontario woman who died when the car they were passengers in left the roadway and struck a tree along the 60 Freeway early Saturday.

Rafael Flores Reinoso, 49, of Baldwin Park and Michelle Alvarez, 23, of Ontario, died at the scene of the 2:40 a.m. crash along the eastbound 60 Freeway, just west of the 605 Freeway, in an unincorporated county area near Industry, Los Angeles County coroner’s Lt. Fred Corrall said.

They were passengers in a 2006 Scion tC being driven by a 24-year-old Ontario man that veered from traffic lanes and struck a tree along a gore point, California Highway Patrol officials said.

The driver and another passenger, described as a 45-year-old Ontario woman, were hospitalized with major injuries, according to the CHP. The cause of the crash remained under investigation.