The driver of a pickup truck that veered into oncoming traffic on Tuesday night, killing eight others including six university students, was aged just 13, National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said Thursday. The left front tire of the teen’s truck appeared to have failed, Landsberg said, causing the child to swerve onto the wrong side of a highway in West Texas. The pickup crashed head-on with a mini-van carrying the men’s and women’s golf teams from New Mexico’s University of the Southwest. Six golfers and their golf coach, Tyler James, died. The unidentified 13-year-old and a passenger in the pickup, Henrich Siemens, also died. The crash caused a massive fireball that could be seen “for miles,” KHOU 11 reported.
