North Carolina Church Mourns Victims Of Fiery Tennessee Bus Crash

STATESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Members of a North Carolina church are mourning the deaths of six members who were among eight people killed in a fiery bus crash in Tennessee.

The bus was carrying a group of seniors from a Statesville, N.C., church back home from a trip to a three-day festival in Gatlinburg, Tenn., featuring gospel singers and speakers.

The church bus blew a tire, veered across a Tennessee highway median and crashed into a sport utility vehicle and a tractor-trailer. The collision occurred Wednesday on Interstate 40 in northeastern Tennessee.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol on Thursday afternoon identified seven of the eight people killed. Six of the dead were members of the Front Street Baptist Church in Statesville.

Fourteen others were hurt, two in critical condition.