Jay Nielson was on his way back from a Sigma Chi formal when he heard the pop.

He was on the second of four buses en route to Tuscaloosa, catching some rest after a celebratory weekend in New Orleans. But, the ride was anything but smooth. 

About 20 minutes later, Nielson, along with other passengers, would watch from the side of a Moselle, Mississippi, exit as the bus burst into flames.

TIMELINE

These times are approximate and according to the accounts of students on the bus.

1:30 p.m. – As the group neared Moselle, Mississippi, Nielson saw an object fall off an 18-wheeler and hit the back left tire of the bus he was riding on. Soon, the whole bus was shaking, he said.

Lauren Delaney, a member of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority, was also on that bus, relaxing after a long weekend, when she felt a jolt.

“We were driving and felt a lot of bumping, like we were going over a rumble strip,” she said. “Then it felt normal again, and everything was fine until we started smelling smoke.”

1:35 p.m. – About 5 minutes later, the driver pulled off the nearest exit in Moselle, Mississippi, Nielson said, and switched spots with the driver of the first bus.

“When we realized that the bus was in bad shape, we immediately got off the bus,” Nielson said. “No one from the bus company told us to do so.”

Delaney also said that the students were not instructed to get off the bus.

“All the buses pulled over, and we looked out the window and saw the fire under the bus but remained on the bus because no one told us to get off,” she said.

In a moment of panic, Nielson said some of the students began retrieving their belongings from the undercarriage of the bus. 

“The bus driver grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran off, but we stayed on,” Delaney said. “Until the bus started filling with smoke from the back was when we ran off and started throwing luggage out. We still stayed close to the bus because we didn’t know how serious it was, until it started popping, [then] we backed away.”

1:50 p.m. – About 15 minutes later, the entire bus was engulfed in flames. 

Nielson, the president of his fraternity’s UA chapter, said he called a University representative as soon as the bus exploded. Nielson said the event was not University-sponsored and the bus was chartered through a third-party vendor, but was unable to disclose the name of the vendor due to ongoing insurance claims for damaged personal belongings. 

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2:20 p.m. – About another 30 minutes later, paramedics and the fire department arrived on the scene, Nielson said. The only buses on the scene when the fire department showed up were the incinerated remains of bus No. 2, and then bus No. 3 and bus No. 4. 

The students waited until the fire was extinguished and were then instructed by the head bus driver, the driver of bus No. 1 who switched to the bus that exploded, to get onto buses No. 3 and 4.

2:50 p.m. – About 30 minutes later, the third and fourth buses traveled to a gas station about 15 minutes away where bus No. 1 was taken when the fire initially started. After stopping at the gas station down the road, they traveled to another gas station to meet a replacement bus, which would take them back to Tuscaloosa safely.

The incident, originally reported on local news in Mississippi and Tuscaloosa, was eventually picked up by national news stations like USA Today, The Today Show and People magazine. Lance Chaisson, another student on the bus, told Good Morning America that the bus was completely filled with smoke by the time he got off. 

“I was just happy to get out of there before the fire spread,” Chaisson said. “I think if the situation was handled differently, it could have gone south very quickly.”

The University did not immediately release any information about the incident to the campus community. On Wednesday, spokesman Chris Bryant provided The Crimson White with the following statement: 

“A private bus chartered by the University of Alabama Sigma Chi fraternity chapter returning from an event in New Orleans caught fire Sunday afternoon in Moselle, Mississippi,” Bryant said. “Everyone on board evacuated safely, and there were no injuries. The fraternity contracts with a third-party vendor to book trips and transportation. The bus was chartered through that company. Alternate transportation was arranged, and everyone returned safely to Tuscaloosa as scheduled.”

Because the event was not UA-sponsored, the University did not have a list of individuals on the bus. Bryant noted, however, that the Office for Fraternity and Sorority Life stayed in close contact with Nielson to make sure all students were “safe, accounted for and transported back to campus.”