RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board planned to meet Tuesday to determine the likely cause of a bus crash in Virginia that killed four people and injured dozens.
The board also will consider safety recommendations at its meeting in Washington.
The crash occurred May 31, 2011, when a Sky Express bus from Greensboro, N.C., bound for New York hit an embankment and overturned on Interstate 95 about 30 miles north of Richmond. Those killed in the crash were Karen Blyden-Decastro, 46, of Cambria Heights, N.Y.; Sie Giok Giang, 63, of Philadelphia; Josefa Torres, 78, of Jamaica, N.Y.; and Denny Estefany Martinez, 25, of Jersey City, N.J.
Bus driver Kin Yiu Cheung faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Court records show Cheung told police he fell asleep at the wheel, but his attorneys have called the crash a “terrible accident and a tragedy.” His trial is set for Nov. 8.
Dispatcher Zhao Jian Chen is set to face the same charges in October.
Transportation Department officials were in the process of shutting down the company at the time of the crash, but had given the Charlotte, N.C., company an extra 10 days to appeal an unsatisfactory safety rating. Sky Express had been cited for 46 violations of driver fatigue rules in two years.
A timeline released by the department indicated that without the extension, Sky Express would have ceased operations the weekend before the crash. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has directed the department to stop extending appeals periods for operators found to be unsafe.
Following the crash, federal officials shut down the bus line and then issued a cease-and-desist order against the company after finding it was trying to sell tickets under other names.
Sky Express is part of an industry of inexpensive buses that travel the East Coast offering cheap fares, convenient routes and, in some cases, free wireless Internet. The industry is thriving, but a string of deadly accidents has prompted calls for tougher federal regulation.
In June, government safety officials swooped down on more than two dozen curbside bus operations that mostly ferry passengers in the busy East Coast transportation corridor between New York and Florida, closing them for safety violations in the largest single federal crackdown on the industry.
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Michael Felberbaum can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MLFelberbaum .
