Students Home After Fire Destroys Bus

A lot of happy youngsters and their parents were reunited tonight at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Boynton Beach. They went through quite an ordeal during a school field trip.
They arrived back at school on two charter buses at about 10:15 tonight from Orlando.  Dozens of smiling parents were waiting there to hug them as they climbed off the buses..
The seventh graders survived a harrowing experience after a charter bus they were on caught fire on the Florida Turnpike near Yeehaw Junction at about 8am.
The trip involved roughly 85 students on two buses operated by VIP Charters. The students and several adult chaperones were on their way to Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios for a science class field trip to get a behind-the-scenes look at the theme park. They are studying force and motion.
There were 43 students on the bus that burst into flames.
Some of the children in the back of the bus say they noticed something was wrong when they began to smell smoke.
"We ran up to the bus driver and said that your bus is on fire! And he pulled over as fast as he could and we found out it was machine difficulties. So we all ran out and went as far as we can and all stayed together as one big group," said Emily Mirisola, a seventh grader. "There was a ton of smoke rushing through it and all of us were trying to get out and there was a lot of pushing and shoving," said Andrew Siegel, another seventh grader on the same bus.  Siegel says he called his mother on his cell phone to tell her the bus was on fire and that he had gotten off safely.
Amazingly none of the 43 children were injured. They waited on the side of the road as their bus burned and another charter bus that was a mile or two ahead came back and picked them up and took them on to orlando.
According to the principal Faith-Ann Cheek, 17 students lost their backpacks, some cash and clothing in the fire.
Cheek says the charter company has a safe track record and she feels there's no reason that they wouldn't use this same bus company again.
She says the cause of the fire is under investigaiton, although it appears to be the result of some mechanical problem.