Icy road conditions were the primary cause of a West Texas prison bus crash that killed eight inmates and two corrections officers.
The state Department of Public Safety in a statement Thursday says the wreck involving the Texas Department of Criminal Justice vehicle was one of six accidents in a two-hour period Wednesday morning either on or near an Interstate 20 overpass near Odessa.
DPS says it was the slick roadway and not earlier wrecks that led to the prison bus crashing through a guardrail along the overpass and down an embankment, where it then struck a passing freight train.
The majority of the other wrecks resulted in either no injuries or minor ones.
Four other inmates on the prison bus and one officer were injured and remained hospitalized Thursday.
