PEMBROKE, N.Y. (WIVB) – WIVB News 4 has been tracking latest developments in Friday’s deadly tour bus crash in Pembroke, and on Sunday, heard from a key official who was part of the emergency response. There are also new details about the operator of the bus and the company’s safety record.
Tim Yaeger, the director of Genesee County’s office of emergency management, said the tour bus crash was one of the most stressful incidents he’s ever been involved with in his 35-year career.
The hectic scene of Friday’s tour bus crash is still fresh in Yaeger’s mind.
“No system is prepared to deal with the amount of injuries, casualties that occurred that day, so our primary mission is really just life safety and the safety of first responders,” Yaeger said.
The tour bus carrying 54 people on board, including the driver, crashed Friday afternoon on I-90 in Pembroke. Somehow the driver lost control and five people died. Just getting to the scene was tough for first responders because of traffic on the highway.
“The New York State Thruway Authority, with the assistance of the New York State Police, did a fabulous job isolating both east and west of the incident scene and made sure the traffic was stopped,” Yaeger said.
He said there was heroic work from first responders in trying to save as many lives as possible and assessing the type of care that victims needed, including children.
“The outcome, although tragic, could’ve been worse,” Yaeger said. “We could’ve had more severe complications to this, but everyone really did a great job.”
Yaeger said in the next week or so, emergency officials will review the incident to try to learn from it in terms of best practices and look at what worked, as well as areas to improve upon in the future. He added that this is a time to decompress to address the mental health of first responders. Yaeger said there will be critical incident stress debriefing sessions Monday evening for first responders. These sessions will be private.
State Police said the tour bus was owned by M & Y Tour Incorporated out of Staten Island.
The NTSB is investigating the crash and will remain on scene for much of the week.
“We are particularly interested in issues relating to occupant protection and seat belt usage, driver performance and operations and oversight of the motor carrier,” NTSB board member Tom Chapman said.
According to an inspection report from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, M & Y Tour Inc., over the past two years had been involved in no crashes and has been inspected 61 times.
Nine times, M & Y Tour Inc was under an out-of-service order and was not authorized to operate. According to the site, the company has a satisfactory rating, meaning there’s no evidence of substantial non-compliance with safety requirements.
“Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again,” Yaeger said.
The NTSB said a preliminary report on the crash will be published in about 30 days. A final report could take over a year to complete.
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Jeff Preval is an award-winning anchor and reporter who joined the News 4 team in December 2021. See more of his work here.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
