NEW YORK — Passengers and witnesses to a horrific crash that sheared the top off a bus and killed 14 people told investigators that the driver’s account of getting clipped by a tractor-trailer didn’t match what they felt and saw before the vehicle slid off the road and into a sign pole.
Driver Ophadell Williams told police that his World Wide Tours bus was hit just as it crossed the New York City line early Saturday on a trip from the Mohegan Sun casino in in Connecticut.
But passengers said Wil liams already had swerved at times to the right for no reason before the accident, a law-enforcement official said Sunday. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The bus was returning to New York’s Chinatown after an overnight trip to the casino. The official said passengers said they didn’t feel anything hit them and that other motorists on Interstate 95 said they didn’t see the bus get hit. The official said police spoke to a tractor-trailer driver who had said he was following the bus.
Williams remained hospitalized in serious condition Sunday and has not commented publicly. His family could not be reached for comment.
As many as 20 passengers were treated at hospitals after the accident. Six remained hospitalized Sunday, according to a statement from Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. All were in critical condition.
The 14 people who were killed — eight men and six women — all died of blunt- force trauma, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner’s office. She said the office was working with families to identify them.
