DATE: Thursday, July 31, 1997               TAG: 9707310410

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A14  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEDYARD KING and ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITERS 

DATELINE: PETERSBURG                        LENGTH:   90 lines

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TOUR IS PUT ON HOLD

A day after their charter bus plunged into the muddy waters of the Nottoway River, more than two dozen children were making plans to return home to Detroit, Denver and Alabama.

They had traveled more than 3,000 miles from Windsor, Ontario, since July 7, visiting sites where civil rights struggles took place. Now, their possessions lost and one of their spiritual leaders dead, the 34 surviving adults and youths have decided to put their journey on hold.

Elaine Eason Steele, co-founder of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, which sponsored the ``Pathways to Freedom'' tour, said it was important that the children return to their families.

``They came close to death, and when you come close to death you need your loved ones around you,'' Steele said. ``They need nurturing. They need hugs from their loved ones.''

With civil rights icon Rosa Parks at her side, Steele said they decided to forgo the last five east coast stops on the schedule. Instead, they will reconvene in Detroit on Friday and ``complete'' the trip by traveling to Toronto, the symbolic end of the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves get to freedom.

While Parks, Steele and the survivors from the bus accident spoke to reporters at a Petersburg motel, federal and state investigators were interviewing witnesses and combing the crash scene for clues. They said it might take weeks to pinpoint the cause.

But some troubling issues were being raised:

The Detroit-based Rite-Way Charter bus with 28 children and six chaperones was part of a fleet often accused of being improperly maintained and operated by inexperienced drivers.

Rite-Way is named in more than a dozen Michigan lawsuits for allegedly operating faulty vehicles and hiring inexperienced drivers, the Detroit News reported Wednesday.

The bus itself is believed to have passed a July 18 inspection, and bus driver Donald Tolliver had no points on his driver's license, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Michigan Secretary of State.

Tolliver, who had driven the same tour last year, veered off Interstate 95 about 20 miles south of Petersburg while on the last stretch of a 494-mile trip that was approaching the legal maximum someone may drive without rest.

The group left Charleston, S.C., for Washington, D.C., at 9 p.m. Monday, stopping twice at rest stops before crashing near Stony Creek, Va., at 7:15 a.m. Federal highway safety laws prohibit any commercial driver from spending more than 10 hours on the road without an uninterrupted rest of at least eight hours.

Passengers said the two rest stops lasted an hour or more, which would have kept Tolliver within the 10-hour limit. When the bus crashed, it had another 150 miles to go.

The vehicle coasted off I-95, down an embankment and into the river, where it landed on its side partially submerged.

The bus was on a tight time schedule and was expected in Washington around noon.

Three people, including Tolliver, remained hospitalized at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond on Wednesday evening. Tolliver and Yusef Muhammad, 14, of Atlanta, were listed in stable condition. Tiandra Gunn, 16, of Detroit, was listed in critical condition.

Parks and other institute leaders flew to Virginia on Tuesday to meet with the survivors and discuss whether they should continue. It was especially tragic for Parks because the man who died - Adisa Foluke, 25, of Detroit - was a close family friend.

``We will miss him. I ask your prayers for all of us,'' Parks said at the news conference Wednesday. ``I'm sure (the children) appreciated the inspiration and the teaching that he brought them.''

Most of the 20 or so children and adults at the news conference will be flown to their homes by Northwest Airlines at no charge. They said they hoped to meet back in Detroit and finish the journey. For them, the tragedy offered a taste of the difficulties blacks faced during the civil-rights movement.

``We've gone through buses being burned. A bus in the river is no problem,'' said Air Force Chaplain Wilbert L. Mickens Jr., the lead chaperone on the trip. ``Every setback is an opportunity on the road to freedom.''

The National Transportation Safety Board sent eight investigators to Virginia on Tuesday to examine the bus, interview passengers and try to reconstruct the accident.

The bus was moved Tuesday night to a private garage, where State Police and NTSB investigators examined it for mechanical defects or other clues. A state police spokeswoman said she didn't expect the cause of the crash to be announced for several weeks.

The NTSB, an independent federal board that primarily investigates airplane crashes, selects about 100 highways accidents a year to study.

``Our particular interest is in serious accidents involving children,'' said Paul Schlamm, spokesman for the NTSB. ``We look for accidents that are significant in terms of safety issues.''

The investigation could take months, Schlamm said, and will be presented - along with possible recommendations for improved safety - to the five-member safety board. KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITY INJURIES

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