Federal investigators said they are examining whether fatigue, impairment, medical issues or other factors played a role in a bus crash that killed five people, including two children, in Virginia early Friday.
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The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday a six-member team has joined the investigation into the crash on Interstate 95 in Stafford County, about 40 miles south of Washington, D.C. Investigators will review the driver’s actions in the 72 hours before the collision, including possible sleep issues and potential drug or alcohol impairment.
“We are particularly interested in issues relating to, first, motor coach driver factors, including fatigue, impairment, qualifications, and medical events,” NTSB member Tom Chapman said. “Highway factors, including work zone designs, whether variable speed limit signs were used, and whether the end of the traffic queue was monitored.”
The crash occurred at around 2:35 a.m. when the bus failed to slow and struck as many as six vehicles near the 146-mile marker in Stafford County, Virginia State Police said in a statement Friday.
Among the dead were four people in an Acura hit by a Chevrolet Suburban in a chain reaction, the agency said. A 7-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl, a 44-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man, all from Greenfield, Massachusetts, were killed, Virginia State Police said.
A 25-year-old woman from Worcester, Massachusetts, in the Suburban directly struck by the bus was also killed, the agency said. The bus also hit other vehicles, it said.
The victims’ names have not been publicly released.
An additional 44 people were hospitalized with injuries, three of them in critical condition, Virginia State Police said. The agency said about 34 people were on the bus, though they did not break down the injury status of those on board.
Investigators are also trying to determine whether the bus driver attempted to brake before impact.
“It seems fairly clear that if there was any braking, there wasn’t much, because of the speed and the severity of the collision,” Chapman said. “But too early yet to know exactly what was happening on board the vehicle.”
Virginia State Police said the preliminary investigation showed that traffic was slowing southbound on Interstate 95 for a work zone when the bus failed to slow down, triggering the fatal crash.
The bus was headed from New York City to Charlotte, N.C., the state police said. A focus of the crash investigation is the driver’s actions before the crash, the agency said. It said charges were pending.
The driver was identified as Jing S. Dong, 48, of New York City. NBC News was unable to find contact information for someone of that name in New York City.
The bus operator is E&P Travel, Virginia State Police said. It is listed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration as a company in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, with four buses and 11 drivers.
Administration data lists four violations for the company, three related to allegations of driving a motor coach or bus 15 or more mph above the speed limit and one for a motor coach driver who allegedly could not satisfy English proficiency requirements.
Additionally, the administration lists an E&P bus’ involvement in a 2024 crash in which nine were injured; fault is not indicated. E&P had no acute or critical violations on record that would demand an expedited inspection or intervention, the administration’s data shows.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NTSB’s investigation comes after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the bus operator will face scrutiny and characterized the driver as an immigrant with limited English proficiency. Chapman said on Saturday that the NTSB is “still assessing the driver’s language proficiency” and has not drawn a conclusion on the matter yet.
The NTSB expects to publish a preliminary report in a month, Chapman said. The final report will take anywhere from a year to two years to complete.
“Our investigators will work thoroughly to document relevant evidence and gather additional factual information,” Chapman said. “Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened, and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again.”