This story was edited after posting to correct an error in the second paragraph.
By Bob Allen
Eight people died Oct. 2 when a church bus returning from a conference led by former Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt blew a tire, crossed the median and collided with two vehicles on Interstate 40 in eastern Tennessee.
Senior adults from Front Street Baptist Church in Statesville, N.C., were returning home from Gatlinburg, Tenn., after attending the 17th annual Fall Jubilee, a sold-out event billed as “old-time gospel singin’, laughin’ and preachin’” with keynote speakers Johnny Hunt and Charles Stanley and artists including Sandi Patty, Larnelle Harris and Guy Penrod, longtime lead singer of the Gaither Vocal Band.
“My heart could not be sadder at the death of the senior adults in the bus wreck on I-40 leaving Jubilee in Gatlinburg,” Hunt, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., and SBC president in 2008-2010, posted on Twitter. “I was just with them.”
Six of the dead belonged to Young at Heart, a close-knit group of senior adults at Front Street Baptist Church that holds monthly outings and rehearses on Tuesday mornings for a senior-adult choir called Joyful Singers. The Fall Jubilee is an annual tradition.
“We know that six of our seniors have gone on to be with the Lord in heaven,” worship pastor Rick Cruz said in a press conference at the church Oct. 3.
“We know that God is in control, and we know that he is able to heal even in this difficult time,” Cruz said. “We do rejoice in the fact that six of our loved ones are in heaven with the Lord right now, and we know Jesus gave his life for each one of us on the cross so that we may have everlasting life. So that’s the hope that we hold on to and that’s the truth that we hold on to each and every day.”
Fourteen people were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, four of them airlifted from the scene and the others either by ambulance or personal vehicle. As of Thursday morning two remained in critical condition, seven others were serious and five were stable.
Police say the fully loaded bus with 18 passengers, including the driver, was traveling eastbound when it went out of control after a blowout of its left front tire. It snapped through a cable barrier and careened across a grassy median before clipping a Chevrolet Tahoe and slamming into a tractor-trailer that immediately burst into flames. Also killed were the truck driver and a passenger in the SUV.
Police Sgt. Bill Miller called it the worst wreck he has covered in 17 years as public information officer for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Names of the victims will not been released until all their families are notified. Miller said all names will be released at the same time, and the process could take several days.
The 375-member Front Street Baptist Church held a prayer vigil Wednesday night, while senior pastor Tim Stutts and youth pastor Jeremy Miller drove to Tennessee to visit those in the hospital.
The accident occurred around 2 p.m. Wednesday at mile marker 423 on Interstate 40 near Dandridge, Tenn., about 30 miles east of Knoxville. The interstate was closed until about 5 a.m. on Thursday.
Miller said there is no indication that the cable barrier meant to prevent head-on collisions failed, but there isn’t much that could sustain a direct hit by a 40,000-pound vehicle traveling at highway speed.
“If this were a traditional guardrail that most people are familiar with — with big, wide metal and galvanized steel — it would have pushed through that as well,” he said in a story published by the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
The system, called median cable barriers, has been used in Tennessee since 2005. Today the cables line more than 1.4 million linear feet statewide and cost taxpayers $20 million to install.
Police said they don’t know what caused the tire to fail, but an investigation will continue to determine whether any negligence may have occurred.