MEXICAN HAT, UT -- With no cell phone service in the remote stretch of road where their tour bus rolled down an embankment, the uninjured flagged down a motorist who had to drive about two dozen miles to get help.

Most of the 51 passengers returning home from a ski trip Sunday were thrown from the bus, which had come to rest about 40 feet below the road. The roof of the bus had split open, and some people were pinned under the wreck.

"The bus looked like a convertible," said Jim Hook, fire chief in nearby Bluff.

By late Monday, nine people had died from the accident, which injured about 20. Authorities were questioning why the tour bus driver, who suffered minor injuries, had chosen to take state Route 163 through Monument Valley.

Even during the day, it wouldn't have been a short cut on the route from Telluride, Colo., to Phoenix. At night, local officials say, it was no place for a large vehicle.

"It's just a narrow road. No shoulders, sharp curves," Hook said. "Truckers and buses know that. You don't go in there at night."

The Arrow Stage Lines bus was southbound on Route 163 when it veered off the two-lane road and dropped off an embankment. Weather was not considered the primary cause of the accident.

"The main thing we're looking at is the driver failed to negotiate the turn," said Trooper Cameron Roden of the Utah Highway Patrol.

Arrow Stage refused to identify the organizers who leased the bus for the trip. Roden said it was among as many as 17 chartered for a long weekend in Telluride, Colo.

Passengers were a mix of families, people in their 20s and children as young as 5, Hook said.

Among those killed were two Arizona high school students: Marc Rasmussen, a senior at Deer Valley High School in Glendale, and Erica Sheffey, a junior. The Highway Patrol identified the other victims as Jeffrey Rivera, 32, Ariz.; Joseph Debolske, 18; James J. Baumer, 41; Reese Washington, 12; Pam Humphreys, 67; Carolyn Bowden; and Jasmine Bowden, 16.

Rasmussen, who was on the wrestling team, was on the trip with his parents, teenage sister and younger brother, school district spokeswoman Sandi Hicks said. The four family members were taken to hospitals, she said.

It wasn't clear whether Sheffey, a cheerleader, was traveling with relatives, Hicks said.

The bus crashed about 10 miles north of Mexican Hat, in the Four Corners region where Utah meets Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.

------

Associated Press writers Paul Foy and Ed White in Salt Lake City and Amanda Myers in Phoenix contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)