Crew Sues Over Deadly Tour Bus Crash

San Luis Obispo, CA (June 5, 2020)—In the wake of a deadly tour bus crash that killed a monitor engineer and injured seven others last fall, members of country artist Josh Turner’s production crew and the engineer’s estate are suing All Access Coach Leasing, which owned and operated the bus, and Turner’s management, Modern Management.

Veteran Engineer David Turner Killed in Tour Bus Crash

Represented by attorney Ronald L.M. Goldman, the plaintiffs filed a civil complaint in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Friday, May 29, seeking unspecified damages for the September 2019 crash, citing “wrongful death, negligent and defective design of the bus, and negligent hiring,” according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

On the night of the accident, a 2005 Prevost XL2 Motor Coach bus carrying the crew left Highway 46 East 20 minutes outside of Paso Robles and drove off a 50-foot embankment into a creek bed. The crew bus was pulling an equipment trailer and was in the slow lane when it left the roadway at roughly 60 MPH, driving through 200 yards of undergrowth before smashing into the dry creek, crushing the front of the bus and ejecting two passengers, one of whom was FOH engineer David Turner, no relation to the artist. The Oxford, MS engineer, 64, had been Josh Turner’s monitor engineer for 14 years. The artist and his band were traveling in a separate bus. The bus crash took place only a few miles from the site where actor James Dean died, wrecking his car in 1955 near the intersection of Highways 41 and 46.

The bus driver, Bradley Dratnol, was an All Access Coach Leasing employee and was also injured in the crash. While the California Highway Patrol finished its investigation into the crash this past winter, the final report has yet to be released to the public. The first hearing is expected in September.