By Connor Adams Sheets
Pennsylvania State Police were investigating what caused a tour bus headed for Flushing to rear-end a tractor-trailer in Pennsylvania Monday morning, killing the bus driver and injuring 25 passengers as well as the truck driver, according to officials. The crash is the latest in a series of fatal tour bus crashes this year.
The bus, which was operated by Bethlehem, Pa.-based Mr. Ho Charter Services — also known as New Oriental Tour Co. — had been chartered by a group of Chinese clients to take them from Louisville, Ky., to New York, according to Tom Fox, a spokesman for the turnpike’s western regional office.
A representative for the bus provider, who refused to comment further, said the tour bus was headed to Flushing on an overnight route.
The bus left Kentucky and crashed at 11 p.m., with an estimated arrival time in New York of 1 p.m., Fox said. It hit the flatbed tractor-trailer hard enough to leave a 100-foot skid mark and shove the truck halfway onto the asphalt shoulder at about 7:21 a.m. while headed east on the highway, Fox said.
The driver, Bo Hua Tan, 39, lived somewhere in New York City and was killed when the bus crashed near at Milepost 95.5 a few miles east of the Donegal turnpike interchange, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, causing major traffic headaches on the road.
“The turnpike was closed eastbound for five hours,” Fox said Tuesday. “It was closed for 86 miles from the New Stanton to Breezewood interchanges because it happened between two interchanges and we had to get people off at those interchanges …. There are more miles between our interchanges than let’s just say average. So again, if people are getting on at the interchange before the accident, you can’t let them on because there’s nowhere to go, so you have to detour them.”
Traffic was back to normal approximately 12:30 p.m. Monday, Fox said.
Tan had only started driving for the bus company 10 days before his death, according to Fox, adding that the company has a higher rate of violations due to driver fatigue and other concerns than the national average for charter bus companies.
A total of 55 people — most of whom only speak Chinese — survived the crash, including 25 who had minor or moderate injuries, according to Fox. The remaining passengers were taken to a service plaza nearby.
On March 12, 14 people were killed when a bus returning to New York from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn., struck a support pole next to the New England Thruway, splitting the bus in half.
Two days later, a Forest Hills bus driver killed himself and a passenger and injured 41 people when he crashed his bus in New Jersey en route to Philadelphia from Chinatown.
Just seven days later, a bus operated by the Flushing company Big Boy Coach Inc. crashed in New Hampshire, injuring 23 people during a trip from Quebec to Boston.
Another bus crash killed four women and injured dozens when a Flushing driver rolled a bus over May 31 in Virginia while the Sky Express Bus Co. bus was en route from Greensboro, N.C., to Chinatown.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Ridgewood) announced in April that at their urging the National Transportation Safety Board has agreed to conduct an investigation into the practices and regulations governing the low-cost tour bus industry.
The board expects the review of the effectiveness of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — the agency responsible for enforcing safety regulations on commercial vehicles — to be completed in six months.
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
