2 women dead, dozens injured in New Castle County tour bus crash

NEW CASTLE, Del. (WPVI) -- A bus carrying dozens of people crashed and overturned in Delaware, leaving two women dead and several other people injured, authorities said.

It happened at 4:20 p.m. Sunday on Route 1 by Red Lion Road in New Castle in the northern part of the state, south of Wilmington.

According to Delaware State Police spokesman Sgt. Paul Shavack there were 49 passengers on the bus as it traveled on the Route 1 southbound exit ramp onto Route 13.

The bus was going through a curve when it left the road and overturned. The bus slid on its roof down a grass embankment and came to rest on its left side, Shavack said.

54-year-old Hua'y Chen from New York City was found under the bus and was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 30-year-old Idil Bahsi from Istanbul, Turkey, was taken to Christiana Hospital and died Sunday night.

The other passengers were taken to Christiana Hospital, Wilmington Hospital, Saint Francis Hospital, Middletown Emergency Department, and A.I. DuPont Hospital. 23 passengers are still being treated at Christiana Hospital - one remaining in critical condition.

Investigators were interviewing the bus driver, 56-year-old Jinli Zhao, who was not critically injured.

Investigators are looking into his driver logs to determine how long he was on the road without a break.

Detours around the area caused major delays and a nearly 20-mile back up on Route 1 northbound as investigators cleared the scene and began to look into the cause.

The passengers were taking a 3-day sightseeing tour to Washington that began Friday in New York, authorities said. The crash happened as the bus was heading back to New York.

Photographs taken at the scene showed the bus lying on the driver's side on a grassy shoulder. The photographs showed at least two people with neck braces lying in the grass while a group of others were sitting nearby.

Elvis Cruz drove up on the chaotic scene shortly after it happened.

"It was a lot of people screaming for help. A lot of them were bleeding, and it was just hard to take in all at once," he said.

"Unfortunately there were a lot of people speaking different languages. There was kind of a communication gap between us but then when we went to the bus, we saw there were people still underneath and people still trying to get out," said Cruz, 19, a student at Penn State Brandywine in Pennsylvania.

Cruz and a friend grabbed a first aid kit and helped until emergency crews arrived to airlift and transport others by ambulance to five hospitals in the county.

Video footage taken at the site showed emergency officials leaning over to attend the injured and placing victims on stretchers as ambulances and other emergency vehicles stood by.

Debris was scattered about and a ladder had been set up alongside the overturned bus. Later photographs published online showed the bus had been righted.

It's a scene Cruz says he'll never forget.

"Life is so fragile - like one moment they were on a bus and the next moment everyone is screaming and everyone's in pain," he said.

The preliminary investigation has determined that drugs and alcohol are not considered to be contributing factors in this crash.

Police said the bus belonged to Am USA Express Incorporated, a bus company based in New York.

Federal records show the bus company has had one other accident over the past two years. It had two violations for not keeping drivers logs up to date.

Overall, the company which operates seven buses gets an average safety rating from the government.

No one was answering the phone at the bus company today.

There have been no charges filed at this time.

The Blood Bank of Delmarva says the injuries from the accident caused a significant drop in its supply and is asking for donors to come forward.

The National Transportation Safety Board says it will likely have a preliminary report on the cause of the accident in about ten days.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.