Multiple Passengers Are Killed After Bus Crashes in Western New York

A tour bus traveling from Niagara Falls to New York City crashed on a highway outside Buffalo on Friday, killing multiple passengers, including at least one child, and leaving some people trapped beneath the vehicle, officials said.

The crash occurred on the New York State Thruway about 30 miles east of Buffalo, when the driver of the bus lost control of the vehicle as it traveled at “full speed,” said Trooper James O’Callaghan, a spokesperson for the New York State Police.

Every passenger on the bus had at least some sort of “cut, bruise or abrasion as an injury,” he said. The state police said that the bus was originally chartered in New York City and that a manifest provided by the bus company said that 52 people, including the driver, were on board when it crashed.

O’Callaghan said that most of the passengers were from India, China and the Philippines and that many were not wearing seat belts. He said that the bus was “extremely damaged” and that many passengers had been ejected from the vehicle when it crashed. The driver was “alive and well,” O’Callaghan said.

The fatalities included at least one child, but multiple passengers remained unaccounted for, O’Callaghan said. The bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash, he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a “go-team” of investigators to the crash site Friday, a spokesperson for the agency said. The team is expected to arrive Saturday morning.

The seriousness of the crash was clear from the flashing red and yellow lights of the more than three dozen emergency vehicles lining both sides of the highway as the rescue operation continued.

Around 3 p.m., several firefighters set up a black tarp to shield one side of the bus from public view. Reporters and other onlookers were kept hundreds of feet away.

O’Callaghan said the driver had lost control of the bus for “unknown reasons,” and had then gone “into the median, overcorrected and ended up in the ditch.”

“The bus did roll; there were multiple ejections. There are multiple people trapped and there are multiple fatalities,” he said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement on social platform X that she had been “briefed on the tragic tour bus accident” and that her office was “coordinating closely” with the state police and other agencies that were responding to the crash.

At a news conference at Erie County Medical Center later in the day, Dr. Samuel Cloud, the chief medical officer, said the crash was “probably the most trauma patients from one incident in my career here in Buffalo.”

The 24 patients brought to the hospital had head injuries, broken extremities and internal injuries, said Dr. Jeffrey J. Brewer, the head of surgery.

Dr. Jennifer L. Pugh, the medical center’s chief of emergency medicine, said 20 crash victims were still being treated as of 4:30 p.m., including two who were in surgery.

With the victims being of various nationalities, the hospital had to use 15 to 20 translation devices to communicate with them, Pugh said. Some of the patients spoke English and were able to communicate with doctors more easily.

Six people were treated at the University of Rochester Medical Center, including two who had sustained critical injuries and four, including a child, who were “medically stable,” the hospital said in a statement.

Margaret Ferrentino, president of Mercy Flight, which provides emergency air transport to hospitals, said the organization’s helicopters had made multiple trips from the crash site to local medical centers.

By 2 p.m., helicopters had taken two injured children to Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, one adult to Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo and another adult to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester.

“I think we will be busy for a while here,” Ferrentino said. “It is a multiagency response, both air and ground.” She added: “I pray for the victims and for the safety of the responders.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.