‘Catastrophic failure’ led to fatal Lexington 2 bus crash. What’s in the report?
The right front tire that led a Lexington 2 school bus to swerve off the interstate and turn over, ultimately killing an eighth grade student, had been corroded by nails, an investigation by the S.C. Highway Patrol found.
The bus had been inspected a month before the crash.
The investigation report, obtained by The State on Thursday through a public records request, provided new details about the April 17 crash that left a school bus overturned along Interstate 77 in Chester County. Jose Maria Gonzales-Linares, a 13-year-old Pine Ridge Middle school student was killed in the crash.
The driver of the school bus, Leon Cureton, was noted to be “driving too fast for conditions,” investigators wrote. Cureton, who had been driving school buses for over a decade, was traveling around 70 mph when the right front tire failed. State law dictates that school buses must not exceed 55 mph.
It’s unclear whether Cureton is still employed with the school district. A spokesperson for Lexington 2 declined to answer questions from a reporter.
When investigators inspected the vehicle, a 2021 Blue Bird school bus, after the crash, they found three nails located in the tread-cap of the tire. None of the three appeared to have pierced the tire’s inner lining, the report noted.
“The punctures appear to have allowed moisture to reach the steel chords, ultimately resulting in corrosion. This corrosion, in time, can lead to failures within one or more of the affected plies resulting in tire failure. One of the nails was located in the area of the catastrophic failure location of the tire,” according to the report.
The fatal April 17 crash wasn’t the first time the same school bus had crashed on an interstate as a result of tire issues. The bus’s maintenance records, obtained by The State through a public records request, revealed a tire blow-out in June 2023 caused the bus to “go off into the median striking the safety wire,” while transporting the Brookland-Cayce High School football team on Interstate 26.
The bus had been inspected by Jim Whitehead’s Best One Tire & Service on March 11, a little over a month before the wreck, the investigation report and maintenance records showed. When reached by a reporter with The State, the tire shop’s manager was not immediately available to speak.
This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 3:02 PM.
