Kiarra Gordon killed in I-40 Arizona bus crash after semi truck rear ends school bus during field trip. Six other students injured.
A collision involving a school bus and a truck in Arizona over the weekend led to a 17-year-old teen girl being killed and six other people injured, officials said.
State Department of Public Safety authorities said 19 people were aboard the bus around 9:30 a.m. Sunday on a field trip when it was rear-ended by a semi-tractor-trailer on Interstate 40 near Sanders, Apache County.
DPS officials said traffic had slowed on the highway because of an earlier rollover crash.
They said the semi hit the school bus, and the impact pushed the vehicle into a van.
It is not known whether the drivers of the semi and the van were hurt.
‘Beautiful soul…’
The Holbrook Indian School released a statement to Fox 10 Phoenix saying some of its students and staff were on a field trip to Window Rock, NM, at the time of the deadly crash. In total, 19 individuals were on board the school bus at the time of the collision.
A relative has identified the teen who died in the collision as teenager Kiarra Gordon.
Falonna Ashley, the girl’s aunt, said the teen had just celebrated her birthday in July and is survived by three younger brothers.
Ashley said her niece loved sports, especially volleyball, working with animals and watching movies.
‘She had a beautiful soul,’ the aunt told FOX10. ‘She’s from Wide Ruins, a small community on the Navajo Nation. She was focused on education and was thinking about what to do after high school.’
The teen girl according to her aunt was a junior and part of the Navajo nation.
It remained unclear what charges, if any, would follow.
