What to know about a bus crash that killed 8 Mexican farmworkers in Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A bus carrying farmworkers to a watermelon field in central Florida was sideswiped by a drunk driver and overturned in a field, killing eight people and injuring dozens of others, authorities said.

The man accused of causing Tuesday's crash has a lengthy driving record and is being held in jail without bond.

The farmworkers were from Mexico, working on seasonal or temporary visas. Some of their names were released Wednesday afternoon.

Here’s what to know about the crash.

Around 6:40 a.m. on Tuesday, a 2001 Ford Ranger driven by Bryan Howard, 41, crossed the center line of State Road 40 and sideswiped a bus carrying 53 farmworkers to a watermelon patch at Cannon Farms in Dunnellon. The bus veered off the two-lane road that passes through horse farms, hit a tree and rolled over.

The crash happened about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Orlando.

All eight people killed were in the U.S. from Mexico on H-2A farmworker visas, officials said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday morning that 44 Mexican citizens were on the bus, hired by a Mexican American farmer to work on the watermelon farm under temporary or seasonal visas. Mexico’s government later said six of the injured were in serious condition and three more were in critical condition.

Lucas Benitez, the co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, said Wednesday that it learned from the Mexican consulate that the farmworkers who were killed were from at least five different states in Mexico.

Six of the dead have been identified: Evarado Ventura Hernández, 30; Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24; Alfredo Tovar Sánchez, 20; Isaías Miranda Pascal, 21; José Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27; and Manuel Pérez Ríos, 46.

Gamaliel Marcel, of Tallahassee, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he and Salazar Villeda were childhood friends in Mexico. Salazar Villeda got married in March and the couple had a 5-year-old daughter, Marcel added.

“I feel so bad, especially because I knew him my whole life,” he said. “He was always the most respectful but brought out a smile when you needed it.”

Evarado Ventura Hernández's mother, Rosalina Hernández Martínez, said Wednesday that her son had told her the work he did on Florida farms was “very hard,” but that he was happy.

“It hurts,” she said. “A piece of my heart is gone.”

The Mexican consulate in Orlando was providing support at the AdventHealth Ocala hospital, where many of the injured were taken.

Andres Sequera, a director of mission and ministry for AdventHealth hospitals, said chaplains were visiting the injured workers, and that they “were in good spirits for what they have been through.”

Farms across Florida use about 50,000 H-2A workers each year, more than any other state, according to the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

The workers travel to Florida on seasonal or temporary visas to harvest farm fruits and vegetables.

These workers were in Marion County, which is in the north-central part of Florida. The county is best known for its rolling countryside, which stands out from much of the state's typical flat geography. Thoroughbred horse farms are common in the hills outside of Ocala, which is the largest city in the region. Interstate 75 also cuts through Marion County.

Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, was arrested hours after the crash and remained jailed without bond in Ocala.

At a brief court appearance on Wednesday morning, Howard pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence-manslaughter charges in the deaths of eight farmworkers. He spoke by teleconference from jail.

An arrest report said Howard had bloodshot and watery eyes and slurred speech after the crash, which he told Florida Highway Patrol troopers he didn’t remember.

Howard also told investigators he had crashed his mother’s car into a tree a few days earlier while avoiding an animal. The report said Howard had smoked marijuana oil and took his prescribed medications before bed — two anti-seizure drugs and another for high blood pressure. Five hours later, he was driving to a methadone clinic where he receives daily medication for a chipped vertebra.

Troopers had arrested Howard after he failed several sobriety tests.

Howard told the judge he's a self-employed painter and drywall installer. He said he had $700 in the bank, no other assets and no dependents.

On Wednesday, his head was bandaged and he wore a protective gown typically given to inmates on suicide watch. The judge denied bond, appointed a public defender and set his next court appearance for next month. The public defender's office declined to comment about the case.

Marion County court records show Howard has had at least three crashes and numerous traffic tickets dating back to 2006. He was cited previously for crossing the center line, and his driver's license has been suspended at least three times, the latest in 2021 for getting too many citations within a year.

In 2013, he was convicted of grand theft. A year later, his probation was revoked after he tested positive for cocaine.

A memorial service for the victims was held Wednesday evening outside the Farmworker Association of Florida office north of Orlando in Apopka. About two dozen people gathered, some holding white crosses with the names of the people killed, and sang songs in Spanish.

“They were here to do honest work,” Jeannie Economos, an official with the Farmworker Association of Florida, said of the farmworkers. “Agricultural work is hard. They came here to work hard to support themselves and their families back in their home country.”

AP reporters Adriana Gómez Licón in Miami, Mike Schneider in Apopka, and AP stringer José María Álvarez in Miahuatlan, Mexico, in southern Oaxaca state, contributed.

Authorities work at the scene of a deadly crash after a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a pickup truck on State Road 40 Tuesday, May 14, 2024, near Dunnellon, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)

Highway Patrol Cpl. Brett Detweiler takes pictures of the pick up truck that was involved in the crash scene as emergency workers worked the scene of a fatal bus crash carrying laborers that overturned Tuesday morning, May 14, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP)

Emergency workers work the scene of a fatal bus crash carrying laborers that overturned Tuesday morning, May 14, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP)

This photo provided by Marion County Jail shows Bryan Howard. The Florida Highway Patrol arrested Howard, the driver of a pickup truck that crashed into the farmworker bus on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Marion County Jail via AP)

Florida Highway Patrol Cpl. Brett Detweiler takes pictures of the crash scene as emergency workers are on the scene of a fatal bus crash carrying laborers that overturned Tuesday morning, May 14, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP)

Authorities work at the scene of a deadly crash after a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a pickup truck on State Road 40 Tuesday, May 14, 2024, near Dunnellon, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)

Authorities work at the scene of a deadly crash after a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a pickup truck on State Road 40 Tuesday, May 14, 2024, near Dunnellon, Fla. The driver of the pick up, Bryan Maclean Howard, was charged with eight counts of DUI manslaughter. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)

Authorities work at the scene of a deadly crash after a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a pickup truck on State Road 40 Tuesday, May 14, 2024, near Dunnellon, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)

Authorities work at the scene of a deadly crash after a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a pickup truck on State Road 40 Tuesday, May 14, 2024, near Dunnellon, Fla. The driver of the pick up, Bryan Maclean Howard, was charged with eight counts of DUI manslaughter. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)

Authorities work at the scene of a deadly crash after a bus carrying farmworkers collided with a pickup truck on State Road 40 Tuesday, May 14, 2024, near Dunnellon, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Friday bragged of its recently tested new intercontinental ballistic missile, calling it “the world’s strongest,” a claim viewed by outside experts as propaganda though the test showed an advancement in the North's quest to build a more reliable weapons arsenal.

A missile launched by North Korea on Thursday flew higher and stayed in the air for a longer duration than any other weapon the country had so far fired. It signaled that the North has achieved progress in acquiring a nuclear-armed ICBM that can hit the U.S. mainland. But foreign experts assess that the country has still a few remaining technological issues to master before acquiring such a functioning ICBM.

On Friday, the North’s Korean Central News Agency identified the missile as “Hwasong-19” ICBM and called it “the world’s strongest strategic missile” and “the perfected weapon system.”

KCNA said leader Kim Jong Un observed the launch, describing it as “an appropriate military action” to express North Korea’s resolve to respond to its enemies’ moves that escalated tensions and threats to North Korea’s national security. It said Kim thanked weapons scientists for demonstrating North Korea’s “matchless strategic nuclear attack capability.”

South Korea’s military earlier said that North Korea could have tested a solid-fueled missile but Friday’s KCNA dispatch didn’t say what propellant the Hwasong-19 ICBM uses. Observers say the color of exhaust flames seen in North Korean media photos on the launch still suggest the new ICBM uses solid fuels.

Before Thursday’s test, North Korea’s most advanced ICBM was known as the “Hwasong-18” missile which uses solid fuels. Pre-loaded solid propellants make it easier to move missiles and require much less launch preparation times than liquid propellants that must be fueled before liftoffs. So it’s more difficult for opponents to detect launches by solid-fuel missiles.

In recent years, North Korea has reported steady advancement in its efforts to obtain nuclear-tipped missiles. Many foreign experts believe North Korea likely has missiles that can deliver nuclear strikes on all of South Korea, but it has yet to possess nuclear missiles that can travel to the mainland U.S.

There are questions on whether North Korea has acquired the technology to shield warheads from the high-temperature, high-stress environment of atmospheric reentry. Many foreign analysts say North Korea also must have improved altitude control and guidance systems for missiles. They say North Korea needs an ability to place multiple warheads on a single missile to defeat its rivals’ missile defenses.

All of North Korea’s known ICBM tests, including Thursday’s, have been performed on steep angles to avoid neighboring countries. South Korean military spokesperson Lee Sung Joon said Thursday that a high-angel trajectory launch cannot verify a missile’s re-entry vehicle technology, though North Korea has previously claimed to have acquired that technology.

Observers say that Thursday's launch, the North's first ICBM test in almost a year, was largely meant to grab American attention days before the U.S. presidential election and respond to international condemnation over North Korea's reported dispatch of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

North Korea's reported troop dispatch highlights the expanding military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. South Korea. the U.S. and others worry North Korea might seek high-tech, sensitive Russian technology to perfect its nuclear and missile programs in return for joining the Russian-Ukraine war.

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Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

This photo provided by the North Korean government, shows what it says a test launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile "Hwasong-19" at an undisclosed place in North Korea Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

This photo provided by the North Korean government, shows what it says a test launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile "Hwasong-19" at an undisclosed place in North Korea Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

This photo provided by the North Korean government, shows what it says a test launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile "Hwasong-19" at an undisclosed place in North Korea Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)