text: A damaged OGA Charters bus is hauled away after a fatal rollover on Saturday, May 14, 2016, south of the Dimmit-Webb County line on U.S. 83 North in Texas. (Laredo Texas, Nuevo Laredo Mexico out, Mandatory... (Associated Press) 
   
   A damaged OGA Charters bus is hauled away after a fatal rollover on Saturday, May 14, 2016, south of the Dimmit-Webb County line on U.S. 83 North in Texas. (Laredo Texas, Nuevo Laredo Mexico out, Mandatory credit Danny Zaragoza | Laredo Morning Times.) (Associated Press) 
   
   LAREDO, Texas (AP) — A charter bus headed to a casino crashed in far South Texas on Saturday, killing eight people and injuring 44 others in a one-vehicle rollover, officials said. 
   
   Seven people died at the scene on U.S. Highway 83 about 46 miles north of Laredo and another died later at a Laredo hospital, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Conrad Hein said. 
   
   "The driver of the bus lost control and rolled over," he said. "Everything's real preliminary right now." 
   
   Hein said the driver was among the survivors. His name and the names of passengers were not immediately available, Hein said. 
   
   The trooper said it was raining Saturday morning but it was uncertain if that was a factor in the crash that occurred just before 11:30 a.m. He said no other vehicles were in the area at the time. 
   
   "Our troopers are going to look into what happened but it's going to take us some time," he said of the investigation. "We just know the driver lost control." 
   
   The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday night it was sending a team to also investigate the wreck. They were expected to arrive Sunday. 
   
   Webb County Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ricardo Rangel told the Laredo Morning Times the bus belonged to OGA Charters was headed to a casino in Eagle Pass, about 125 miles northwest of Laredo. The bus company is based in San Juan, in Hidalgo County in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. A message left at the bus company Saturday was not immediately returned. 
   
   Hein said 23 people were taken to Doctors Hospital in Laredo, where the eighth victim died. Fifteen were taken to Laredo Medical Center. Seven were taken to a Dimmit County hospital in Carrizo Springs. 
   
   Priscilla Salinas, a spokeswoman for Laredo Medical Center, said bus passengers being treated there were in stable condition. She said she could share no additional information. 
   
   The highway at the accident scene was reopened by early evening. Laredo about 150 miles southwest of San Antonio. 
   
   The crash is one of the deadliest bus accidents in Texas in the last several years. In January 2015, two state corrections officers and eight inmates were killed after their Texas Department of Criminal Justice bus struck a piece of displaced highway guardrail west of Odessa. The bus fell about 20 feet before striking a Union Pacific freight train that happened to be passing beneath the highway. Last Thursday, the NTSB concluded that the wreck was caused by the bus hitting the guardrail piece. 
   
   Seventeen passengers died in 2008 near Sherman when their bus plunged over a highway bridge on their way to a religious retreat in Missouri. The NTSB blamed that crash on a retreaded tire on the right front axle that was punctured by an unknown object. 
   
   Although the retread itself wasn't the cause, the panel noted that the tire was affixed to the front axle illegally, the bus company didn't have the authority to leave Texas after failing an inspection three months earlier, and the company that inspected the bus wasn't equipped to judge whether it was roadworthy. The owner of the Houston bus company was charged with making false statements but avoided prison in 2014 after a federal judge sentenced him to three years of probation in a plea agreement. 
   
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   Information from: Laredo Morning Times, http://www.lmtonline.com ||||| Updated material from The Associated Press: 
   
   The small South Texas bus company involved in a rollover crash that killed eight people and injured 44 others had been ordered twice by Louisiana state inspectors in 2015 to take one of its buses off the road to fix brake and emergency exit problems. 
   
   Records posted online by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration show that regulators ordered OGA Charters to sideline the bus in May 2015 because of brake problems and again in August of last year when they were getting worse. 
   
   It was not immediately clear Sunday whether that was same charter bus that crashed Saturday about 45 miles north of Laredo or what steps the company took to fix the problems with its sidelined bus between inspections. 
   
   The Laredo Morning Times identified the victims as Altagracia Torres, 61; Maria de Jesus Musquiz, 52; Dora Nelly Gonzalez, 68; Frances Guerrero, 52; Marisela Lopez, 60; Adelfa Garza, 63; Jaime Navarro, 60; and Emma Rodriguez Zamudio, 81. 
   
   A Webb County official retracted a statement Sunday that a ninth person had died from injuries from the crash. 
   
   National Transportation Safety Board investigators arrived Sunday in Laredo to try to determine a cause of the crash. Spokesman Keith Holloway said the agency will look at the operations of the company as part of its investigation but declined further comment. 
   
   According to federal online records, OGA Charters has two buses and the Motor Carrier Safety Administration had it listed with a “satisfactory” rating in May 2014. 
   
   Records noted that the company had reported no crashes in the last two years prior to Saturday. But six driver and vehicle inspections since 2014 found 15 total violations, ranging from driver records and hours they were on the road, to vehicle maintenance problems. 
   
   The May 2015 inspection in Louisiana reported brake connections with leaks, problems with the automatic brake adjustment system and a discolored windshield. The bus was put out of service because 20 percent or more of its brakes were defective. 
   
   The records don’t name the Louisiana community where the inspection occurred. 
   
   Another Louisiana inspection just four months later found “general” brake problems, citing some of the same problems, and the emergency exit issue. Details of the emergency exit problem were not immediately available. The report also noted the discolored windshield problem and again ordered the bus out of service. 
   
   That the same bus, whether it was the one involved in the deadly crash or not, continued to have brake problems a few months after its initial inspection is a concern, said Shaun Kildare, director of research for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based group that tracks bus crashes and federal highway safety regulations. 
   
   “We know this carrier had the vehicle violation problems,” Kildare said. “They apparently didn’t do anything. … When they have vehicle problems they don’t fix, that’s a question.” 
   
   The rate of violations for hours of service was marked as a problem area by federal regulators. 
   
   Officials at OGA Charters, based in San Juan, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment. 
   
   Seven people died at the scene of Saturday’s crash and another died at a hospital, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Conrad Hein said Saturday. 
   
   “The driver of the bus lost control and rolled over,” he said. “Everything’s real preliminary right now.” 
   
   Hein said the driver was among the survivors. Hein did not release the identity of the driver or any passengers. 
   
   The trooper said it was raining Saturday morning but it was uncertain if that was a factor in the crash that occurred just before 11:30 a.m. He said no other vehicles were in the area at the time. 
   
   “Our troopers are going to look into what happened but it’s going to take us some time,” he said of the investigation. “We just know the driver lost control.” 
   
   Department of Public Safety officials did not immediately return phone messages Sunday. 
   
   Webb County Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ricardo Rangel told the Laredo Morning Times the bus was heading to a casino in Eagle Pass, about 125 miles northwest of Laredo. 
   
   The injured were taken to hospitals in Laredo, Carrizo Springs and San Antonio.
target: – A charter bus headed to a casino crashed in far South Texas on Saturday, killing nine people and injuring 43 others in a one-vehicle rollover, officials tell the AP. Seven people died at the scene on US Highway 83 about 46 miles north of Laredo and two died later at a Laredo hospital, per Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Conrad Hein. "The driver of the bus lost control and rolled over," he says. "Everything's real preliminary right now." Hein says the driver was among the survivors. His name and the names of passengers were not immediately available, the Dallas Morning News reports. The trooper says it was raining Saturday morning but it's uncertain if that was a factor in the crash that occurred just before 11:30am. A family member who had three aunts on board, one of whom was killed, says a trooper told her the bus rolled over three times, the Laredo Morning Times reports. Fighting back tears, she says some passengers were trapped inside and others flew out windows. Hein says no other vehicles were in the area at the time. "Our troopers are going to look into what happened but it's going to take us some time," he says of the investigation. "We just know the driver lost control." The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday night it was sending a team to also investigate the wreck. They were expected to arrive Sunday. The crash is one of the deadliest bus accidents in Texas in the last several years.