Grand Canyon West reopens attractions a day after fatal tour bus rollover
Aug 3, 2023, 8:08 AM | Updated: 8:05 pm
Emergency personnel tend to a crash after a tour bus rolled over near the Grand Canyon West Skywalk, Tuesday Aug. 1, 2023, in Peach Springs, Arizona. (Mark McDowell via AP)
(Mark McDowell via AP)
GRAND CANYON WEST, Ariz. (AP) — Grand Canyon West and its Skywalk attraction and helicopter tours was back in business Wednesday, a day after one person was killed and at least eight others hospitalized after a tour bus rollover in northern Arizona.
Hualapai tribal officials said a private tour operator and a visitor’s personal vehicle collided near the Grand Canyon West parking lot at around 10 a.m. Tuesday within the resort’s Corp Circle in Terminal 1.
They haven’t released any other information, citing their ongoing investigation.
Cheyanne Majenty, who is with Hualapai Emergency Operations, said the resort was open and fully operational Wednesday after being closed following Tuesday’s fatal rollover.
John MacDonald, a spokesman for the tribe, said the person who died was a woman but he didn’t have her name, age or hometown yet.
Eight of the 57 people aboard the bus were flown to a Las Vegas hospital and reported to be in fair condition Tuesday night. However, MacDonald didn’t have any names or updates Wednesday.
The Hualapai Nation Police Department is investigating the rollover, but the National Transportation Safety Board said it is not doing so “at this time.”
Grand Canyon West is in northern Mohave County at the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is run by the tribe but has no operational ties to Grand Canyon National Park, which is managed by the National Park Service.
Skywalk, which opened as a tourist attraction in 2007, is a 10-foot (3-meter) wide, horseshoe-shaped cantilever bridge with a glass walkway on the edge of a side canyon in Grand Canyon West.
