Across Georgia

Morehouse band's bus skids off Interstate 75

• Photos

Associated Press

Emergency personnel respond to a bus crash involving Morehouse College's marching band in Henry County. Saturday's wet weather likely contributed to the accident.

ATLANTA --- Police say a charter bus carrying 42 members of the Morehouse College marching band tipped over after it skidded off Interstate 75, injuring several students on their way to a football game.

Henry County police Capt. Jason Bolton says the bus landed on its side in a ditch around 10 a.m. Saturday. Capt. Bolton said the driver lost control while trying to avoid another vehicle that was moving into his lane.

Capt. Bolton says 13 band members were taken to area hospitals in ambulances with non-life-threatening injuries. The other 29 were also taken to hospitals as a precaution.

The bus was one of three chartered by Morehouse to go to Albany State University for a football game.

Roads were wet from rainy conditions, and Capt. Bolton says weather was likely a contributing factor in the accident.

Pilot in crash planned to visit his daughters

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA. --- The pilot who died when his small plane crashed into a suburban Atlanta house, killing a woman inside the home, was headed to Tennessee to see his six daughters, a federal official said Saturday.

Ted Bailey, chief forensic investigator for the Gwinnett Medical Examiner's Office, identified the pilot as 58-year-old James Wardlaw of Atlanta. The woman killed in her Lawrenceville home was identified as 62-year-old Judith Kirchner.

The crash happened just before 1:30 p.m. Friday, not long after the plane had taken off from Gwinnett Count Airport.