Just found this article. Leaking R12A ignited and filled the entire bus with flames, killing 18 passengers and seriously injuring 2. Not sure how it happened, people reported that the AC didn't work well and that the bus smelled strongly of strange gas, so it sounds like the system had a bad leak that filled the bus with gas and it was somehow ignited. Here's the article.
http://elsiglo.com.pa/cronica-roja/tragedia-cresta-infierno-06/24088743
English translation: "THE BUS OF DEATH
Lidia Atencio was free that day, but a colleague asked her to change her shift, due to commitments, and she never thought that this change would become an indelible mark on her existence.
The afternoon of October 23, 2006, passed like any other, Lidia took bus 8B-06 at 1:20 that afternoon, in El Valle de San Isidro.
The journey was going to be short in time, since the bus was on the North Corridor-Ciudad BolÃvar route, no more than 20 minutes to the stop in Perejil, at least that's what she thought, a nurse from the Children's Hospital.
The fire
Halfway through the corridor, passengers began to feel an irritating fire, but none claimed anything, there was heat in the ship, the air conditioning did not work well and a strong smell of a strange gas was felt on board.
The bus continued without stopping, Lidia recalled when she arrived at the toll booth near MartÃn Sosa Avenue, the driver, Prospero Ortega Justavino, stopped the bus for five people to get off. The heat inside the car was already unbearable.
About 500 meters from the toll booth, in front of the Hosanna church, a lot of smoke was coming out of the bus. Prospero, somewhat scared, stopped, went down with his assistant, opened the cover of the transport engine and immediately a huge flare. he got out and invaded the interior of the bus.
Screams of men, children and women exploded from within in panic and despair to save their lives. The bus had no emergency exit door and was completely closed, the tragedy was just beginning.
Lidia, sitting in the last positions on the left row of 8B-06, felt a general weakness. "I was conscious, but I felt that I could not get up, I thought about God, I was sure that I was not going to die, something inside me told me," recalled the nurse.
He does not know how he got out of the interior, but remember that someone broke the glass of one of the windows of the bus, located almost in the middle, where the 24 survivors of the bus threw themselves with a crash, many of them were hit by falling from the height of the huge vehicle .
The flames advanced from the front, there was the engine and the source of the fire. HC 12 A gas, used as a refrigerant in the air conditioning system. [censored] moved quickly and grabbed the only entrance and exit doors, the steering wheel part, and the rest of the car.
Death
In less than 9 minutes everything was over, only ambulance sirens were heard, patrols, groans of the wounded and laments of the survivors who still could not believe what happened, Lidia was safe and said shortly before passing out: 'I'm fine , take care of that gentleman that he if it is bad ".
Lidia was referring to Luis Contreras, his body was turned off by firefighters and paramedics, his skin was bleeding and tearing itself, on his back, stomach, arms, face and legs.
Contreras recalls that he was helped out by the driver of another less deadly bus, who stopped to help. "I left everything burned, but conscious, it was in the hospital emergency room that I passed out when the doctors tried to save my life," he explained.
In those nine minutes the flames silenced the last screams of 18 Panamanians, including five children who were cremated inside the bus.
One of those children was Iván, his grandmother took him to play soccer in Albrook, he wanted to be a professional soccer player, but neither he nor his grandmother could go out.
The scene was Dantesque, typical of Alighieri's [censored]. Faces struck by physical pain when falling to the ground, intoxicated by the smoke and turbidity of the inhaled air and by the fear of not having died. Others with their hands covered their eyes to dispel their tears.
On the floor, there was a smell of burned meat, smoke and pain. Fire ambulances, private and public hospitals made space between the road congested by traffic blocked by the event.
Of 42 passengers on bus 8B-06, 18 died and 24 survived. Luis and Lidia were the survivors who were most affected by the La Cresta tragedy. She underwent surgery twice at the Memorial Hospital in Houston, Texas, in the United States, but Luis traveled five times and had 17 surgeries on different parts of his body.
Whose fault is it?
According to lawyer Luis MartÃnez, legal representative of 10 of the survivors, HC 12 A gas, used on bus 8B-06, has been banned in the United States since 1990, "because it is a super explosive gas."
According to the lawyer, a Panamanian company introduced the gas to Panama. Meanwhile, a banking institution financed the bus, brought by land through Central America.
MartÃnez maintains that in Panama a correct investigation was not carried out, the prosecution exempted corporations and individuals from liability, while he became the executioner of three humble people who are the weakest in the chain of responsibility.
For his part, Contreras, a cabinetmaker by profession and, like Lidia, affected by severe burns, assured that 'here there was no investigation, many things were overlooked and we are not satisfied with what was done, we lost here because some people from the government they were involved. '
The demand
Almost two years later, in 2008, the lawyer MartÃnez sued in the city of Kansas, United States, the gas manufacturing company. In July of this year, and after 12 years of the tragedy that cost 18 Panamanians their lives, the legal team reached an agreement with the US company.
According to MartÃnez, the company assumed part of its responsibility and reached an agreement with the Panamanian plaintiffs. The judge will take around 4 months, after accepting said agreement between the parties to resolve the case, the lawyer said.
The lawyer did not detail the type of agreement that was reached with the US company, nor the figures, but it is expected that before the end of this year, the case will be solved with respect to the aforementioned lawsuit.
Finally, MartÃnez assured that once the process is concluded in the United States, he will proceed to sue the government of the time and the Panamanian State internationally.
Meanwhile, Zuleyka Moore, prosecutor who initiated the investigation of the bus 8B-06 case, told El Siglo that the part carried out by the prosecution under its responsibility, was carried out correctly and all the stages established by law were considered and the Constitution.
Moore replied that, in this case, the State has been sued on more than two occasions, but the claims have not been admitted.
The driver of the burned down bus in La Cresta, Prospero Ortega and the owner Ariel Ortega, were sentenced to 40 months in prison, by the First Circuit judge of the Criminal Branch of the First Judicial Circuit of Panama, Rolando Quezada Vallespi.
Quezada criminally declared responsible for the fire on bus 8B-06, in which 18 people died.
As an accessory penalty, once the main sentence was completed, both were sentenced to the impediment of driving motor vehicles for the same term.
Both Lidia Atencio and Luis Contreras consider that in this case not all the victims were served justice."
