I want to begin by extending our most
sincere condolences
to those that were impacted by this
tragedy.
On behalf of all of us at NTSB,
we offer our deepest sympathies and our
most heartfelt condolences to the
families, friends, and victims of those
impacted by this tragedy.
We're grateful to and we want to commend
the law enforcement and first responders
personnel who participated in the
emergency response to this crash as well
as the hospital staff responsible for
treating the injured.
Yesterday, NTSB launched a team to
investigate the Friday crash of a motor
coach near Pemroke, New York.
The crash resulted in both fatalities
and serious injuries.
Our investigation is a safety
investigation.
It is parallel to the law enforcement
investigation which is being conducted
by the New York State Police.
Here is what we know. At approximately
12:45 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on
Friday, August 22nd, a 2005 Van Hoo
Motor Coach operated by MNY Tour of
Staten Island, New York, was
transporting 54 occupants, including the
driver, a tour guide, and 52 passengers.
The motor coach was traveling eastbound
on the New York State throughway,
Interstate 90 near Pemroke in Jennese
County, New York. In this vicinity, I90
has a posted speed limit of 65 miles
hour.
For reasons yet to be determined, the
motor coach departed the travel lanes
near mile marker 404 and rolled over.
It first veered left into the median and
then moved rightward back across the
travel lanes, rolling over off the right
hand shoulder of the highway.
As a result of the crash, multiple
occupants were ejected from the motor
coach.
It has been reported to us that five
motor coach occupants were injally
injured. That's five that were fatally
injured according to the reports we have
received.
Numerous other occupants were injured,
some very seriously. They were
transported to area hospitals for
treatment of various injuries.
Highway safety investigators from NTSB
began arriving yesterday afternoon and
most are now on site. This morning, I
joined our investigators for a
preliminary in inspection of the crash
site and also the bus wreckage.
The NTSB team will be led by Steve
Prrowy, who is the investigator in
charge. Steve is a 14-year veteran of
the NTSB with a previous career in law
enforcement.
Steve has been detained because of
transportation challenges and has not
yet arrived. He's assisted by Scott
Parent, who's with me today. And I'm
going to ask Scott to talk about the
structure of our investigation and also
some of the technology issues. Scott.
Good afternoon.
So, currently we have a team of
investigators that specialize in human
performance, survival factors, highway
engineering, motor carrier operations,
and vehicle factors. Our human
performance investigator is going to
look at the driver um particularly
fatigue, distraction, and driver
qualifications. Our survival factors
investigator is going to look at the
emergency response and the occup
protection on the bus. Our highway
engineer is going to look at the highway
design and the signage out on Interstate
90. Our motor carrier operations or
factors investigator is going to look at
the motor carrier operations as well as
the safety policies of the company.
Our vehicle factors investigator is
going to look at the mechanical
condition of the bus.
uh some of the electronic data that
we're interested in. This bus is
equipped with an engine uh engine
control unit that has EDR capability or
event data recorder capability.
Um some of that data that we may be able
to obtain from this bus will include the
speed of the bus as well as some of the
actions of the driver um manipulating
the brake pedal or the accelerator
pedal.
Also of an interest would be any type of
dash camera that may have been equipped
on the bus and any type of GPS unit that
may have recorded um speed and location.
Thank you.
>> Thank you, Scott.
>> With regard to this tragedy, we are
particularly interested in issues
relating to occupant protection and seat
belt usage, driver performance, and
operations and oversight of the motor
carrier.
In addition to our investigators, we
have a specialist from our office of
transportation disaster assistance on
scene who will be working closely with
the families and local agencies to
provide support to those involved.
Our investigative team will be on scene
for four to six days and a preliminary
report is expected to be published in
about 30 days. Final reports take
between 12 and 24 months to complete.
I also want to offer additional
information about the mission of the
National Transportation Safety Board.
NTSB is an independent federal agency
charged by Congress with investigating
every civil aviation accident in the
United States and significant accidents
in railroad, highway, marine, and
pipeline.
We also issue safety recommendations
aimed at preventing future accidents.
We are working closely with the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the
New York State Police, and the New York
Department of Transportation, and we're
grateful for the support of these
agencies.
We encourage witnesses or those with
information relevant to the
investigation, including any video
footage, to contact the NTSB by email at
witness ntsb.gov.
Let me repeat that. It's witness
ntsb.gov.
Our investigators will work to
thoroughly document relevant evidence
and gather additional factual
information. Our mission is to
understand not just what happened, but
why it happened and to recommend changes
to prevent it from happening again.
We will not be determining the probable
cause of the crash while we were on
scene, nor will we speculate about the
cause. These are the first steps in a
lengthy investigatory process.
Once again, we extend our condolences to
the families and we thank the first
responders and emergency uh personnel
for their efforts. With that, I'm happy
to take your questions and if you have a
question, please raise your hand and
identify yourself and your media
affiliation. Yes, ma'am.
>> Hi, Alyssa with WG NBC affiliate in
Buffalo. We already know thatan failure
and operator impairment have been ruled
out in this investigation. I'm curious
if any other factors have been ruled out
at this time.
>> We have not ruled out uh ruled any of
those factors out and we'll be looking
very closely at all of those. It's too
early to have definitively ruled out
those factors.
>> That was a a statement from state
police. So, are you saying that that
cannot be ruled out at this time?
>> From our perspective in terms of the
safety investigation, no, that cannot be
ruled out.
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> Hi, my name is Lisa. I'm with news. Were
both of the drivers from New York City
and who chartered the bus and arranged
the tour? Was it the company itself?
>> Uh, we don't know the details yet about
the tour arrangements. Uh, as my
understanding is there was only one
driver on board. There was a driver and
a tour guide. I don't know the details
yet about the the driver, the the the
characteristics or the nature of of the
driver's arrangement. That will be part
of what we look at in the investigation.
>> So, it's unclear if either the driver or
the tour guide were from New York.
That's unclear at this point.
>> Yes, sir.
>> Ben with WG. Was the motor coach
equipped with seat belts?
>> We had an opportunity to look at the bus
today. Uh the bus uh does appear to us,
it's it's in bad shape, but it does
appear to us that the bus was equipped
with seat belts. Um so part of our
investigation will be to determine the
extent to which seat belts were being
used and the extent to which the lack of
seat belt use may have been a factor in
some of the passengers being ejected.
>> Is it referred to wear seat belt on a
motor? So, that is a an interesting uh
question because as I understand it, and
I'm not an expert in this, but I
understand it, there is a a relatively
recently passed law here in New York
State that requires seat belt usage on
buses manufactur buses manufactured
after 2016. Uh, this bus is a 2005 bus.
Whether that law would apply in this
case is not clear to me anyway. That's
something we'll be looking at and we may
make some recommendations in that regard
with respect to how that law might be
improved.
>> John Harris, Buffalo News. Uh, is there
a camera inside the bus um that you
think will be useful at all for your
investigation or was there no camera
inside?
>> I think that's something we're still
determining. Correct. Do we know whether
whether there was a camera in on
>> There was a camera recovered from the
scene. uh we still have to look at the
camera and the video footage and
determine whether or not it was actually
related to this bus itself.
>> But that that's the sort of evidence by
the way that we find very valuable. But
we don't yet know yet whether we have
that in this case
others
>> in terms of
bus driver investigation how do you
expect that to continue?
>> That's still early. My understanding is
that the tour company has been
cooperative. I think I'm correct. Right.
The tour company has been cooperative.
Um whether we'll have an opportunity um
uh to interview the tour bus driver has
yet to be determined.
>> Was the bus owned by the tour company or
was it?
>> Um that's a good question. I believe it
is owned by the tour company, but that
that is something we'll have to look at
as well.
>> Next question.
Thank you again for your interest.
the