A bus crashed into vehicles slowing for a work zone on Interstate 95 in Virginia early Friday, killing five people and sending 44 more to hospitals in a wreck that shut down southbound lanes for hours. State police said the bus failed to slow for traffic and struck six vehicles near Quantico in Stafford County at about 2:35 a.m.
The crash left three people in critical condition and turned a dark stretch of highway into a mass-casualty scene before sunrise. One of the people taken to a hospital was the driver, identified by police as Jing S. Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York. Charges were pending.
The victims were all in vehicles hit by the bus. Four died in a car that caught fire: a 45-year-old man, a 44-year-old woman, a 13-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy from Greenfield, Massachusetts. The fifth victim was a 25-year-old woman from Worcester, Massachusetts, who was in an SUV struck by the bus.
Officials said the bus carried about 34 passengers. Mary Washington Healthcare said it received 19 patients from the crash, including seven who were taken to its trauma center in Fredericksburg. Three patients remained there later Friday, one in serious condition and two in critical condition. Twelve others were treated at the hospital in Stafford and discharged in good condition.
The crash happened as traffic was slowing southbound for an upcoming work zone, and that detail is now central to investigators trying to determine why the bus did not stop in time. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Dong got his commercial driver's license two years ago in New York and identified him as an American citizen originally from China, adding another layer to the scrutiny around the driver and the trip.
The bus was operated by E&P Travel Inc. of Kings Mountain, North Carolina. A federal compliance snapshot showed one injury accident involving the company’s vehicles in the previous two years, and the company carried a satisfactory safety rating. It was incorporated on Nov. 24, 2023, and listed four vehicles and 11 drivers.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a go-team to investigate, a sign the crash will now be examined from the bus itself to the road conditions that met it. Southbound lanes reopened by noon, but the unanswered question remains the one that matters most: why a bus driving toward a work zone failed to slow in time and turned a routine traffic backup into a deadly pileup.
