Two killed as car strikes Sanders school bus near Lupton; students uninjured

Two people riding in a car that rear-ended a Sanders Unified School District bus were killed Tuesday evening while the 14 students on the bus and the bus driver escaped injury, authorities said. The crash happened as the bus was leaving a drop-off on an Interstate 40 frontage road known locally as old Route 66 across from the Lupton rest area near Lupton, Ariz.

Trooper Kameron Lee, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, summarized the sequence on scene: "The bus had dropped off several children and was accelerating away from the stop when it was hit. The car careened off the roadway and rolled, ejecting the driver and two passengers. The driver was flown to a hospital but the passengers were killed."

State and local responders put the time of the collision at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 5, 2026, on the frontage road just west of the New Mexico border. The car left the roadway and rolled after the rear-end impact, ejecting all three occupants; two passengers were killed at the scene and the vehicle's driver was airlifted to a hospital and reported alive but injured, according to DPS accounts.

Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers were among the first responders. Navajo Nation police officers and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation have also been named as participating in the ongoing investigation, alongside local and state investigators. Authorities have not released the names of the two people killed, and no cause or contributing factors have been announced.

The Sanders Unified School District bus involved had just completed a student drop-off when the impact occurred; district officials have not yet issued a public statement in the accounts available. All 14 students on board and the bus driver were reported unhurt and not transported from the scene, a detail that investigators and parents in the Lupton and Sanders communities have seized on as a relief amid the fatalities.

The presence of the FBI and Navajo Nation police in the probe highlights the complex jurisdictional landscape in northeastern Arizona, where state highways and tribal lands intersect near Lupton. The airlift of the car's driver to unspecified hospital care also underscores emergency-medical responses in this remote stretch of I-40, where definitive trauma care can require air transport.

Investigators from DPS, Navajo Nation police and the FBI continue to examine the crash scene and the vehicle dynamics; authorities said they have not released a cause for the collision or whether any charges will be filed as work to determine what happened proceeds.