The collision involved a former school bus in use by a church youth group and a pickup truck driven by an alcohol-impaired driver.

The head-on collision was the deadliest incident involving drunk driving and the third-deadliest bus crash in U.S. history.

In the aftermath of the disaster, several family members of victims became active leaders of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and one—Karolyn Nunnallee—became national president of the organization.

These include an increased number of emergency exits, higher standards for structural integrity, and the use of less volatile diesel fuel.

The vehicle was designed with a capacity of 66 passengers and a driver, including 11 rows of 39-inch wide seats, separated by a 12-inch central aisle.

A company owned by industrial conglomerate Sheller-Globe Corporation,[1] Superior manufactured the school bus body that was installed on the Ford B700 chassis.

Along with short local moves on school days, the church also drove the bus successfully on several other long trips.

It was maintained regularly by mechanically inclined church members, including a civilian motor pool supervisor from nearby Fort Knox.

A week before the 1988 Kings Island trip, the bus received two new tires of a good commercial quality; the front-end suspension and steering components were also examined at that time.

On the trip, the bus was driven by John Pearman, a part-time associate pastor of the church who was a local court clerk.

They spent the whole day and early evening at Kings Island, then boarded the bus and began traveling out of Ohio and back into Northern Kentucky toward Radcliff.

[6] At 10:55 p.m., while heading south on Interstate 71 outside of Carrollton, Kentucky, the bus collided almost head-on with a black 1987 Toyota pickup truck which was traveling at high speed the wrong way (north in the southbound lanes) on a curved stretch of the highway.

Police also found a twelve-pack of Miller Lite beer in Mahoney's truck which was still cold and had several cans missing.

However, the right front suspension of the Ford chassis broke off through the bus stepwell, puncturing the gasoline tank and igniting the fuel supply.

A survivor recounted the short timeframe of events: "We knew we hit something, and…all the kids got up in the aisle thinking we were gonna get off.

[12] Survivors said after emptying the small fire extinguisher, Pearman helped some of the many children find their way down the narrow and dark aisle to the only practical way out of the smoke-filled bus.

[13] A survivor recounted how when he reached the back door; "Someone on the outside grabbed my arm, put their foot on the bumper and literally pulled me out.

At that point, the passersby who had stopped to help could not reach those still aboard due to the raging fire, and turned their efforts to tending to the crowd of 40 mostly injured survivors.

The coroner later determined that none of the bus occupants suffered broken bones or mortal injuries from the crash impact; all had died from the fire and smoke.

Only 6 bus passengers were uninjured and virtually all suffered varying degrees of emotional trauma and survivor guilt syndrome.

[citation needed] The National Transportation Safety Board responded, conducted an investigation and issued a report on March 28, 1989.

As the pickup truck rotated during impact, it struck a passenger car traveling southbound in the right lane near the church bus.

[18] Following the NTSB report, and much sooner in many instances, many federal, state, and local agencies and bus manufacturers changed regulations, vehicle features, and operating practices.

The Carroll County Commonwealth's Attorney initially planned to seek indictments for capital murder which would have made Mahoney eligible for a possible sentence of death by electrocution if convicted.

That week, according to a published account in The Courier-Journal (Louisville), some survivors of the crash and families of the victims had said that they were willing to forgive Mahoney although the disaster marked forever the congregation of the First Assembly of God, which had many members on the bus.

According to a story by The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2003, Mahoney was living in quiet, self-imposed obscurity in rural Owen County, Kentucky, about ten miles (16 km) from the crash site.

[24] Shortly after the collision, governor Wallace Wilkinson ordered his cabinet to review the state's drunk driving laws and bus safety regulations.

The collision riveted the nation's attention on the problem of drunken driving as never before and has been credited in part with causing the steady decline in the number of alcohol-related fatalities.

"I have found I can make real changes in people's attitudes about drinking and driving and in how our government addresses this critical problem.

The collision and its aftermath, including efforts of some of the families to obtain more than financial settlements, were chronicled by author James S. Kunen in his 1994 book Reckless Disregard: Corporate Greed, Government Indifference, and the Kentucky School Bus Crash.