2011 — March 12, World Wide Travel Casino Tour Bus Crash, I-95, Bronx, NY– 15

–15 MyFoxNY. “Bar Association Offering Legal Assistance…Bus Crash Victims,” 3-12-2011.
–15 NTSB. Motorcoach Run-Off-the-Road and Collision with Vertical Highway… Abstract.
–14 Associated Press. “14 Dead, Many Injured in NYC Casino Bus Accident,” March 12, 2011
–14 NY1 News. “Police Look into Whether Bus Driver Fell Asleep at the Wheel,” 13 Mar 2011
–14 New York Times. “Carnage on I-95 After Crash Rips Bus Apart,” March 12, 2011.
–14 NYT. “Overnight Casino Trips…Low Fares for Riders…Grueling Days…Drivers,” 3-12-11

Narrative Information

NTSB: “On March 12, 2011, about 5:38 a.m., a 1999 Prevost 56-passenger motorcoach, operated by World Wide Travel of Greater New York, was traveling southbound on Interstate 95, en route from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut, to New York City, and carrying 32 passengers. Near mile marker 3.2, the motorcoach departed from the travel lanes, driving over the rumble strips on the right shoulder edge. It then crossed over the 10-foot-wide paved shoulder and struck a guardrail, traveling about 480 feet alongside and on the guardrail, before overturning and flattening it. The vehicle then collided with a vertical highway signpost consisting of two vertical 8-inch-diameter steel tubular poles linked by cross-beam diagonal metal supports. The support structure’s two poles entered the passenger compartment along the base of the passenger windows as the vehicle slid forward, resulting in the roof panel being torn from the bus body for almost its entire length. Fifteen passengers were killed, 17 passengers received serious-to-minor injuries, and the bus driver received minor injuries.

“Major safety issues identified in this investigation were motorcoach driver fatigue and onboard monitoring systems, commercial driver license history, heavy vehicle speed limiters, safety management systems and motor carrier safety ratings, roadside barriers for heavy commercial passenger vehicles, and occupant injuries and motorcoach crashworthiness. As a result of this accident investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board makes recommendations to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the American Bus Association, the National Motorcoach Network, and the United Motorcoach Association…. [Abstract]

“Investigative Synopsis

“The accident occurred when the motorcoach departed from the travel lanes to the right at about a 7° departure angle from the roadway; no tire marks were made on the travel lanes to indicate braking or evasive steering. The driver then traversed a 10-foot-wide paved shoulder enhanced with rumble strips and struck a roadside barrier. Postaccident examination of electronic control module data revealed that the accident motorcoach was traveling at least 64 mph for at least 10 seconds before it struck the guardrail. The control module data also indicated that the driver did not apply the brakes in the 60 seconds before leaving the travel lanes, crossing the shoulder, and striking the guardrail.

“Safety issues identified in this accident investigation include:

• Motorcoach driver fatigue and onboard monitoring systems: The motorcoach driver was experiencing both acute sleep loss and cumulative sleep debt at the time of the accident. Because of the driver’s activities in the days leading to the accident, his sleep opportunities did not exceed 4 hours. Circadian factors related to the driver’s inverted work schedule and the time of day at which the accident occurred, about 5:38 a.m., would have exacerbated the effects of fatigue. No Federal requirements currently exist for motor carriers to implement fatigue management programs. Research into fatigue management technologies is ongoing, though safety systems that monitor driver behavior, such as providing warnings to drowsy drivers or detecting unsafe driving behaviors, are already in the marketplace. However, motor [end of p. vii] carriers are in need of additional guidance on how to effectively use in-vehicle technology to monitor and improve driver safety.

• Commercial driver license history: A driver’s history of crashes or moving violations is directly related to future crash risk. Currently, a motorcoach driver-applicant must submit a 10-year commercial driving employment history, and the states must provide carriers hiring commercial drivers with a 3-year driving history. However, for preemployment screening, motor carriers need access to a longer history of a commercial driver’s license record to make informed hiring decisions. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is currently investigating two other accidents involving high-risk drivers.

• Heavy vehicle speed limiters: The speed limit at the accident location was 50 mph, yet the motorcoach driver was traveling 64 mph after departing the travel lanes of I-95. Had he been driving at or below the speed limit (50 mph), he may have been able to steer the bus away from the guardrail, preventing the rollover and collision with the vertical highway signpost. The motorcoach was equipped with a speed limiter, but it was set to 78 mph. Although there is significant interest in the use of advanced speed limiting technology, no Federal performance standards address such technology or require its installation in heavy vehicles.

• Safety management systems and motor carrier safety ratings: The practices of both motor carriers that had employed the accident driver—such as not adhering to hours-of-service requirements and improperly addressing speeding violations—indicate inadequate oversight of drivers, which impacts passenger safety. This accident is one of many investigated by the NTSB in which the motor carrier’s safety processes, as well as its corporate culture, may have set the stage for the driver’s on-road operating performance. Motor carriers should receive a determination of their fitness to operate and a safety rating based upon on-road performance and adherence to safety regulations, performance that is currently tracked by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Safety Measurement System. Federal rulemaking on a new safety fitness determination process is scheduled to begin by early 2013. The performance rating will be based on all safety-based regulations, rather than on critical and acute violations only. It will replace the current safety rating process, which relies exclusively on onsite investigation or compliance review. In addition, as part of a process called a Safety Management Cycle, motor carriers should be educated about, and required to actively assess, the root cause of safety violations that are correlated to crash risk.

• Roadside barriers for heavy commercial passenger vehicles: The NTSB evaluated roadside conditions at the accident site to determine the guardrail characteristics necessary to shield the vertical highway signpost. Examination of available research [end of p. viii] and testing methods for barriers reveals that guidance given to the states on upgrading barrier systems is inadequate. In addition, there is a clear need nationwide for higher performance traffic barriers to redirect heavy commercial vehicles and motorcoaches. New barrier performance standards are needed along with, possibly, new barrier designs with height and deflection characteristics capable of safely redirecting heavy commercial passenger vehicles from point hazards.

• Occupant injuries and motorcoach crashworthiness: The accident motorcoach hit the guardrail, rolled over, and slid on its passenger side into the vertical highway signpost. The point of impact on the motorcoach, just below the roofline, was not capable of attenuating a frontal crash and the resulting impact loading was beyond the vehicle’s design scope. Further, survival space was compromised for passengers in the path of the vertical signpost structure. Because motorcoaches are not currently required to meet Federal performance standards for occupant protection, the 1999 Prevost motorcoach was not equipped with passenger seat restraint systems—systems which, if installed, could reduce ejection and secondary impact injuries. As a result of this accident investigation, the NTSB identified the design of seat spacing and armrests as a means of reducing occupant injury and advocates for their evaluation and, if safe configurations and spacing are identified, the development of guidelines.

“Probable Cause

“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the motorcoach driver’s failure to control the motorcoach due to fatigue resulting from failure to obtain adequate sleep, poor sleep quality, and the time of day at which the accident occurred. Contributing to the accident was inadequate safety oversight of the accident driver by World Wide Travel’s management. Contributing to the severity of the accident was the motorcoach’s speed and a guardrail that was not designed to redirect the heavy vehicle and did not prevent it from colliding with the vertical highway signpost. Contributing to the severity of passenger injuries was the extensive intrusion of the vertical highway signpost into the passenger compartment.” (p. ix)

(NTSB. Highway Accident Report. Motorcoach Run-Off-the-Road and Collision with Vertical Highway Signpost, Interstate 95 Southbound, [NYC], New York, March 12, 2011, 6-5-2012.)

March 12, AP: “New York – A tour bus returning from a casino at daybreak Saturday scraped along a guard rail, tipped on its side and slammed into a pole that sheared it nearly end to end, leaving a jumble of bodies and twisted metal along Interstate 95. Fourteen passengers were killed.

“The bus had just reached the outskirts of New York City on a journey from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut when the crash happened. The driver told police he lost control trying to avoid a swerving tractor-trailer.

“As many as 20 passengers were treated at area hospitals. Seven were in critical condition, according to police. Several were in surgery later in the day.

“The crash happened at 5:35 a.m., with some of the 31 passengers still asleep. The bus scraped along the guard rail for 300 feet, toppled and crashed into the support pole for a highway sign indicating the exit for the Hutchinson Parkway. The pole knifed through the bus front to back along the window line, peeling the roof off all the way to the back tires. Most people aboard were hurled to the front of the bus on impact, fire chief Edward Kilduff said.

“The southbound lanes of the highway were closed for hours while emergency workers tended to survivors and removed bodies.

‘Chung Ninh, 59, told The New York Times and NY1 News that he had been asleep in his seat, then suddenly found himself hanging upside-down from his seat belt, surrounded by the dead and screaming. One man bled from a severed arm. Ninh said when he tried to help one bloodied woman, the driver told him to stop, because she was dead. “Forget this one. Help another one,” he said the driver told him. He said he and other passengers who were able climbed out through a skylight.

“New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said police were still looking for the truck, which did not stop after the crash. He said the truck was in a lane to the bus’ left, although it was unclear whether the two vehicles touched. Kelly said both the bus and the rig were both moving at “a significant rate of speed.”

“Limo driver Homer Martinez happened on the scene moments after the wreck and saw other drivers sprinting from their cars to assist the injured. “People were saying, `Oh my God. Oh my God,’ holding their hands on their heads,” Martinez said. “I saw people telling other people not to go there, `You don’t want to see this.'”

“Capt. Matthew Galvin of the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit was one of the first rescuers on the scene. He said when officers clambered into the wreckage, they found “bodies everywhere.”
“People were moaning and screaming for help,” he said. Some of the dead were tangled up with the living. Though dazed, about seven people were able to walk away from the wreck on their own, he said. Galvin said that in his 22 years on the job, “It’s probably the worst accident I’ve ever seen in terms of the human toll.”

“The southbound lanes of I-95 were still closed Saturday afternoon. The wreck also closed the northbound side of the highway, but those lanes were open again by midmorning.

“The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators.

“After the crash, firefighters took out seats and cut through the bus roof to reach a handful of passengers pinned in the wreckage. Kilduff called it “a very difficult operation.”

“Many of the passengers on the bus were Chinatown residents. They ranged in age from 20 to 50, officials said.

“Fifteen were being treated at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. A hospital spokeswoman, Barbara DeIorio, said some injuries were serious but had no immediate information on how many were gravely hurt. Five more were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where two were on life support, breathing with the assistance of machines. “We’ve had skull fractures, rib fractures … internal bleeding, we’ve had lung contusions,” said Dr. Ernest Patti, senior attending physician at St. Barnabas. The bus driver was “awake and conscious,” Patti said.

“World Wide Travel, the operator of the bus, said it in a statement that the company was “heartbroken” and cooperating with investigators. “We are a family-owned company and realize words cannot begin to express our sorrow to the families of those who lost their lives or were injured in this tragic accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with them,” it said.

“Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records listed World Wide Travel as having at least two other accidents in which people were injured in the past 24 months. The agency flagged the company for possible extra scrutiny due to violations involving driver fatigue regulations.

“The bus was one of scores that travel daily between Chinatown, in Manhattan, and the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in southeastern Connecticut. Mohegan Sun, in Uncasville, Conn., has estimated a fifth of its business comes from Asian spending and caters to Chinese-American gamblers. Its website has a Chinese-language section offering gaming and bus promotions.” (AP. “14 Dead, Many Injured in NYC Casino Bus Accident,” March 12, 2011.)

March 12, NYT: “A tour bus barreling south for Manhattan overturned at high speed on a highway in the Bronx early Saturday and was sliced open by a sign stanchion in a shriek of rending metal that hurled riders about like rag dolls. Fourteen people were killed and 18 were injured, 5 of them critically, the authorities said. Victims of the accident, which happened about 5:30 a.m. on Interstate 95 just across the Bronx line from Westchester County, were returning to Chinatown on a chartered bus from the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Conn…. The driver, Ophadell Williams, 40, survived. He told the authorities that his bus was clipped by a passing tractor-trailer, which sped away, an assertion that the police later said was under investigation.

“Out of control, the bus began swerving, toppled on its right side and skidded for 100 yards along a guardrail in showers of sparks, then rammed into the support pole of a large green sign pointing to the Hutchinson River Parkway exit. The pole burst through the front window and sheared the bus in half laterally, from front to back, along the passenger window line, the police said. Firefighters found a section of guardrail inside the shattered bus amid unspeakable carnage…. One city official, who asked not to be identified, said that the sign post “had come through at mid-chest, on the seat-high level, and had killed people.”….

“Investigators said the bus was apparently in the right-hand lane and the tractor-trailer was in the center lane, passing the bus. At the rear of the tractor-trailer was a step, on the right-hand side, and the driver said he believed the step clipped his front bumper. The police said that it had not yet been determined whether the bus was actually hit by the tractor-trailer, or whether the bus driver, upon seeing it, himself began to swerve.

“Later, at an evening news conference, Major Michael Kopy of the State Police said that the authorities had seized a trailer on Long Island and a tractor in Westchester County, and taken them to a police compound in Farmingdale to determine if they may have clipped the bus. Major Kopy also said that the police had received several reports that the bus driver had been speeding on the thruway, where the limit is 55 miles per hour. The bus driver’s blood was tested for alcohol and drugs, and the results are pending….” (New York Times. “Carnage on I-95 After Crash Rips Bus Apart,” March 12, 2011.)

March 12, NYT: “As recently as late February, federal regulators had flagged World Wide Travel for a higher-than-average number of crashes and several cases of driver fatigue. The company was given 35 violations for various mechanical and driver safety problems in the past year, records show.” (NYT. “Overnight Casino Trips…Low Fares for Riders…Grueling Days…Drivers,” 3-12-2011.)

March 13, NY1: “As the New York State Police Department investigates the deadly tour bus crash in the Bronx, they’re reportedly focusing on whether the driver may have fallen asleep….sources tell the Daily News at least one passenger saw Williams nodding off before the crash. Passengers reportedly told investigators the bus hit the rumble strips three times.” (NY1 News. “Police Look into Whether Bus Driver Fell Asleep at the Wheel,” March 13, 2011.)

Sources

Associated Press. “14 Dead, Many Injured in NYC Casino Bus Accident,” 3-12-2011. Accessed at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110312/ap_on_re_us/us_tour_bus_accident

MyFoxNY.com. “Bar Association Offering Legal Assistance…Bus Crash Victims,” 3-12-2011. At: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/bar-association-offering-legal-assistance-to-bus-crash-victims-20110312-lgf#

National Transportation Safety Board. Highway Accident Report. Motorcoach Run-Off-the-Road and Collision with Vertical Highway Signpost, Interstate 95 Southbound, New York City, New York, March 12, 2011 (NTSB/HAR-12/01). Washington, DC: NTSB, 6-5-2012, 101 pages. Accessed 6-8-2015 at: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAR1201.pdf

New York Times. “Carnage on I-95 After Crash Rips Bus Apart.” 3-12-2011. Accessed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13crash.html?src=mv

New York Times. “Overnight Casino Trips Mean Low Fares for Riders, and Grueling Days for Drivers,” March 12, 2011. At: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13buses.html?ref=nyregion

NY1 News. “Police Look into Whether Bus Driver Fell Asleep at the Wheel,” March 13, 2011. At: http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/135468/report–police-look-into-whether-bus-driver-fell-asleep-at-the-wheel/