A 450-mile bus trip by two Kenai Peninsula schools, a trip that peninsula students see perhaps once during their time in high school, met with disaster before they could reach their destination in Valdez on Friday.

Traveling in poor visibility conditions with blowing snow, two miles before Thomson Pass the driver of the Unique Bus Charter Company bus, 72-year-old Vernon Brown, who also drives bus for the the Kenai Peninsula School District, failed to see a DOT plow vehicle ahead of him slow to make a turn from the roadway into a pullout and crashed head-long into the rear of a trailer that the plow vehicle was towing.

After the impact, the bus plowed into the ditch, pinning and injuring Brown. The bus was also carrying 43 students and six adults from Kenai Central High and Skyview High School traveling to the Valsez Ski Invitational in Prince William Sound.

At 11:46 am, Glennallen-based Alaska State Troopers, a Park Ranger and Wildlife Trooper responded to the scene of the accident along with Valdez Police, Fire Department and EMS, and Kenny Lake EMS at mile 55 of the Richardson Highway. Valdez Fire Department personnel were able to extricate Brown from the bus, at which time he was trasported to the Valdez Hospital by ambulance with serious injuries, according to the trooper dispatch. Brown would later be transported to an Anchorage Hospital for further treatment of his non-life-threatening injuries

Also transported to Valdez with minor injuries was the driver of the plow truck, 60-year-old James Woodhouse, and one student from onboard the bus. The remainder of the bus occupants were transported to the Hermon Hutchens Elementary School for initial evaluation. Some of the students went on to the Providence Valdez Hospital for further evaluation and treatment of minor injuries.

The ski teams from the two schoools were to begin competition on Friday mid-afternoon, and again on Saturday but the school district announced via statement Friday afternoon that the teams will not be in the competition.

A second Unique Charters bus was dispatched from Kenai and is traveling to Valdez to return the two teams, their coaches and chaperones to the Keani Peninsula.