Inspection records altered a week after Iowa school bus caught fire, killing 2

Mechanical repair records for an Iowa school bus were altered a week after it caught fire, killing the driver and a student Dec. 12, 2017, according to new inspection reports obtained by the Des Moines Register.

The bus was ordered to immediately cease transporting students after a Dec. 6 inspection, six days before the fire, found two critical mechanical failures: one involving an exit lock signal that was not audible and another involving a malfunctioning outside warning light.

The Riverside district said handwritten notes initialized by the district's transportation supervisor indicate the fixes were made the same day as the inspection.

But all bus fixes must be reported fixed with the state before a vehicle resumes transporting students, according to Iowa law and state Department of Education rules.

Those fixes weren’t reported to the state as complete until sometime between Dec. 19 and Dec. 29 — at least seven days after the bus had already been returned to service and was destroyed in the fire.

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Federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board who are looking into the fatal crash were notified by a state official of the matter in a letter dated Jan. 11, 2018.

“I discovered that the inspection records for Riverside bus #4 had been changed to show the out-of-service items as being repaired,” Max Christensen, an executive of the Iowa Department of Education, said in the letter to National Transportation Safety Board investigators. “This concerned me, as I didn’t believe those records should have been touched or changed while the accident is under investigation by NTSB.”

'It's more than checking a box'

Buses that pass inspections or whose operators certify repairs as completed are provided a sticker to publicly indicate that it is state-certified as road-safe.

In this case, however, it’s unlikely the sticker was the motivating factor in reporting the fixes, since the bus was destroyed by the Dec. 12 fire, said Staci Hupp, a spokeswoman for Iowa’s education department.

State education department officials don't know who altered the records weeks following the fire deaths of 16-year-old student Megan Klindt and bus driver Donald Hendricks, 74, Hupp said, or why.

Education officials observed from the charred bus remains that the exit lock they had cited just days before the fire had been removed from the bus. That was an acceptable fix, because the lock was not mandatory, Hupp said.

And although district officials can’t unequivocally prove the malfunctioning warning light was fixed, the handwritten note by Riverside Community School Transportation Supervisor Nick Bates indicates it was repaired, Hupp said.

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The fire started in the bus engine and spread to dry grass in a ditch where the vehicle had become stuck. It remains unknown why Hendricks or Klindt weren't able to exit, federal investigators said last month.

Iowa education department officials couldn't comment on whether the cited mechanical problems — had they not been fixed as Bates’ handwritten note indicates — could have contributed to the deaths because they aren’t handling the investigation, Hupp said.

“We think the fixes were made, but the school district didn’t follow requirements in notifying us before putting the bus back on the road,” Hupp said. “To us, it’s more than checking a box. These requirements are there to give the public confidence in bus inspections and the safety of school buses.”

Who altered the records?

It's unknown who changed the records following the accident.

Bates, the transportation supervisor, and Superintendent Timothy Mitchell have access to the electronic bus reporting system, but it’s possible that other employees could have accessed the system using someone else's login, Hupp said.

Bates declined to comment when contacted by the Register.

Mitchell said he did not make the changes and is unsure why someone had. Mitchell said he wasn’t aware the changes had occurred until this week, when he was notified that the issue had been reported to federal investigators.

Mitchell said there might have been a miscommunication or misunderstanding about the procedure. Bates was hired in August and is still learning about some of the specific protocols, Mitchell noted.

“It was certainly our intent to follow exactly what the prescribed procedures are, as we do after all bus inspections,” Mitchell said. “It is certainly our position that at no time do we ever not be very proactive about making sure the repairs noted in an inspection are done correctly, documented and submitted appropriately.”

Bates' dated and initialed notes showing the bus’ mechanical deficiencies were fixed the same day as the Dec. 6 inspection was provided to Pottawattamie County Sheriff investigators within an hour of the bus fire, Hupp said.

Those records were, in turn, handed over to federal NTSB investigators.

“Our folks will possibly look at those records, but we wouldn’t comment on them until we have an opportunity to view them at length and determine if they have an impact on safety issues,” said Keith Holloway, an NTSB spokesman.

Iowa’s bus records

The letter alerting federal investigators of a possible bus inspection records impropriety was made public by Iowa officials this week as a result of the Register’s nearly two-month quest for inspection documents.  

The documents — and three years of the twice-yearly inspections of the bus — were initially sealed at the request of federal investigators. State officials said their release might take a year or longer, but they released the documents this week after federal investigators gave their approval.

Some Iowa schools have a history of ignoring inspections or falsely certifying with the state that mechanical problems as fixed, Register investigations found in 2012 and again in 2014.

At least two former transportation directors — one from Galva-Holstein and another from Colfax-Mingo — have been convicted of crimes related to bus inspection improprieties following the Register’s initial review.

They were sentenced to probation and fines between $750 and $1,000.

Riverside was not cited as a problem district in the Register’s previous bus inspection investigations.