2 Dead in Bus Crash on New Jersey Turnpike

Published March 15, 2011 | FoxNews.com A luxury tour bus crash on the New Jersey Turnpike killed two people, including the driver, on one of that nation’s most heavily trafficked highways, MyFoxNY.com reported Monday night. According to the New Jersey State Police, the bus crashed on the southbound truck lanes just after 9 p.m. The force of the crash threw the driver, a 50-year-old Taiwanese national from the Forest Hills neighborhood in Queens, through the windshield. Another male victim died at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, where five other victims were being treated in the trauma unit, police said via Twitter. About 40 of the bus’s 44 or 45 passengers were taken to area hospitals. The bus, a private charter operated by Super Luxury Tours Inc. of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., did not flip over as originally reported, police told MyFoxNY.com. Preliminary reports said that rescue crews responded to the scene and pulled victims from the wreckage. The bus hit a guard rail and a concrete abutment, crossed the lanes, and finally crashed, according to reports, but police are still investigating what caused the accident. Authorities believe the bus entered the grass along the center median before striking an overpass support and hitting an embankment along the right side of the road, state police Sgt. Stephen Jones told the Associated Press. It was traveling south on the turnpike when the crash occurred around 9 p.m. Monday just south of Exit 9 in East Brunswick, about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan. The turnpike, which handled more than 235 million vehicles two years ago, generally has five lanes in each direction. The crash closed two southbound outer lanes. On Saturday, a tour bus crashed on the New York State Thruway’s New England section in the Bronx, killing 15 people. The Associated Press contributed to this report.