Faulty Brakes on Flipped Bus Reported : Safety: The owner of the vehicle that turned over in Las Vegas, injuring 41 people, disputes the findings.

A Los Angeles-based tour bus that flipped on its side on an interstate highway in Las Vegas last Saturday had faulty brakes, the Nevada Highway Patrol said Monday.

The bus owner disputed the finding, saying there was nothing mechanically wrong with the vehicle and that it had passed recent inspections in California.

Forty passengers and a tour operator were injured in the accident, several suffering broken or separated limbs. One passenger, Esparanza Villa Vicencio, 40, of Oxnard, remained hospitalized Monday in Las Vegas with a broken pelvis.

Highway Patrol spokesman Phillip Dart said the brake problem was discovered when officers conducted a safety inspection of the impounded bus.

“The brakes on one of the three axles were not properly adjusted,” said Dart. “That means that for the whole bus, the braking capacity could have been reduced by one-third to one-half.”

Dart said the defect “may or may not have contributed” to the accident, which is still under investigation. But Dart added that if the 1974 MCI vehicle had been pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol for an inspection before the accident “it would have been placed out of service.”

Bus driver Jose Luis Figueroa Arceo, 49, of Los Angeles told authorities that his bus skidded out of control on rain-slick Interstate 15 when a car cut in front of it and he attempted to swerve out of the way. The bus, owned by Scorpio Tours of Los Angeles, had just arrived in Las Vegas with a load of weekend gamblers from East Los Angeles, Oxnard and Santa Barbara. Each had paid $10 to $45 for the overnight tour package, including accommodations at the Thunderbird Hotel and Casino.

Dart said a preliminary investigation showed that Arceo may have committed two infractions during the trip--driving more than 15 hours in a day without an eight-hour break and making false entries in his log book. When authorities inspected the crippled bus, Dart said, they found that the driver had already completed his log for the entire trip.

Jose Bretado, owner of the 7-month-old, one-bus firm, quarreled Monday with the initial findings of Nevada authorities.

“There’s nothing wrong with the bus, nothing,” Bretado said. “The bus was inspected about 30 days ago. . . . It had new tires and everything. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

California Highway Patrol officials said Monday that the bus, which the fledgling firm purchased earlier this year, had indeed passed its most recent state safety inspection in August. The bus was due to be inspected again this month, according to CHP motor carrier specialist John Leighton.

The tour bus company also had proper state Public Utilities Commission and federal Interstate Commerce Commission permits to operate interstate and intrastate tours, officials said Monday.

Arceo, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, has a valid tour bus driver’s license. But he had received four traffic tickets in the last 2 1/2 years, including two for speeding and one for driving too slowly. His most recent ticket, in May, was for carrying a soft-drink cooler in the front of the tour bus rather than in the luggage compartment, Bretado said.

“The driver has a clean record, a pretty good record,” said Bretado, adding that Arceo, who was not injured in the collision, quit his previous job because “the company . . . pushed him to go fast, fast, fast.”

State PUC officials said Monday that Scorpio received a charter party permit last month, allowing it to transport passengers within California, after meeting requirements including the proper licensing of its driver. Requirements for the state permit also include a CHP safety inspection of the bus and proof that the firm has $5 million in accident insurance coverage.