Three victims launched into roadway during fatal Pennsylvania crash
The New York-to-Ohio bus at the center of a massive Pennsylvania pile-up that left five people dead — including a 9-year-old Brooklyn girl — was hit with such force that three of the victims were ejected onto the roadway, authorities said Monday.
The gruesome detail emerged as investigators reconstructed the five-vehicle crash that unfolded early Sunday on a winding stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Mount Pleasant Township, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.
The Z&D Tours bus, en route from New York’s Chinatown to Cincinnati, was rounding a downhill curve around 3:35 a.m. when it struck a barrier in the center of the turnpike, according to new information released by Pennsylvania State Police.
The bus then ricocheted up a steep embankment, rolled onto its side and slid back down onto the roadway and into the barrier, fatally throwing driver Shuang Qing Feng, 58, onto the highway, cops said.
A FedEx tractor-trailer then slammed into the disabled vehicle, ejecting two bus passengers — Eileen Zelis Aria, 35, and Jaremy Vazquez, 9 — to their deaths, and sending a cargo of parcels spilling out onto the blacktop, according to police.
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All were city residents: Feng was from Queens, Aria from The Bronx and Jaremy from Brooklyn.
A UPS big rig then crunched the bus, killing two workers inside the truck’s cab, bringing the death toll to five, according to authorities.
They were identified as Pennsylvania residents Dennis Kehler, 48, and Daniel Kepner, 53.
A Mercedes then struck the side of the UPS tractor-trailer, and was in turn sandwiched against that vehicle by a second UPS truck, though the residents of those two vehicles were unharmed.
The five deceased were among approximately 60 people who suffered some degree of injury in the chain-reaction crash, according to officials.
In addition to state authorities, the National Transportation Safety Board is probing the crash.
Investigators have yet to identify a cause in the crash, but are exploring whether snowy conditions played a role.
A review of safety records maintained by the federal Department of Transportation revealed no violations within the last two years by the bus owner, New Jersey-based Z&D Tours.
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