Fatal Bronx Bus Crash Apparently Due to Fatigue

NY Post- The passengers didn’t have a chance.


Federal investigators yesterday released a dramatic video reconstruction of the early-morning New England Thruway bus crash that killed 15 and injured 18 — showing the path of the doomed World Wide Tours coach in its final seconds.




In the computer simulation of the March 2011 disaster, the bus careens off the travel lanes and across the 10-foot-wide shoulder.



Then the right side of the 26-ton bus — on its way to Chinatown from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut — flips onto the guardrail, and skids along the barrier for several seconds before crushing it.


The coach then flips fully onto its right side and blasts into a stanchion holding up a roadway sign, which slices through the bus roof like a hot knife through butter.



As the bus initially veered off the road, fatigued driver Ophadell Williams — who might have had as little as three hours’ sleep in the previous three days — never slammed on the brakes or made any effort to steer out of harm’s way, the National Transportation Safety Board said.



Seat belts would have saved lives and prevented injuries in the crash, the NTSB concluded, but the passenger seats had none.



The NTSB also faulted the location of the signpost just 15 feet from the travel lanes of the Thruway.



If the roadway had been properly designed, the signpost either would have been at least 30 feet away or protected by a far stronger barrier, the NTSB said.

Still, most of the blame for the crash rested with Williams’ failure to get enough sleep and with his driving the bus too fast.



Just 60 seconds before the disaster, Williams was driving at 78 mph in a 50-mph zone, the feds found.



And in the 10 seconds before the crash, the bus was moving at 64 mph.



“Together, fatigue and speed are an especially lethal combination,” said NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman, adding that driver sleepiness has been a factor in seven of the last 19 motor-coach accidents investigated by the board.



Along with the computer simulation, the NTSB also released video graphics showing how seat belts would have prevented injuries.



One simulation shows unbelted passengers tumbling into each other — bodies were contorted between the seats and luggage racks — as the bus turned onto its side.



A second shows how the passengers would have been held in their seats by lap and shoulder belts.



On the World Wide Tours crash bus, only the driver’s seat had a belt.



Seat belts would be mandatory in all new motor coaches under a rule now being considered by the US Department of Transportation.



Bus-industry lobbyists are on board with the idea — and they note that even though it’ll be years before the new rule takes effect, seat belts are already standard on new motor coaches.



“It’s almost impossible to buy a large bus without seat belts,” said Victor Parra of the American Motorcoach Association. “Most companies are being proactive.”



NTSB investigators also cited a litany of other issues.



World Wide Tours was responsible for “inadequate safety oversight” of Williams and did a poor job of checking his background, which includes a manslaughter conviction in a fatal stabbing and a horrendous driving record that includes 18 license suspensions.



Williams had applied for driver’s licenses under fake names and had lied on job applications for casino clerk and MTA bus driver.



And just three days before the deadly Bronx crash, Williams was involved in a minor bus crash on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.



Williams was recently indicted by a Bronx grand jury on 15 counts of manslaughter.



“Drivers with poor driving records are more likely to be involved in a future accident,” NTSB investigators noted.



Board members were astonished that World Wide Tours was denied a Defense Department contract to transport troops but was still allowed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to carry paying passengers.



“Something seems to be badly broken” if one government agency deemed the company unsafe, while another did not, said NTSB member Robert Sumwalt.



And, amazingly, although World Wide Tours is formally out of business, the NTSB says the company’s employees and buses are up and running under the business name Great Escapes, which operates out of the same garage that WWT used in Brooklyn’s Gowanus section.


A Great Escapes employee hung up the phone on a reporter yesterday.