NTSB: Regulators failed at jobs in limo crash that killed 20
ALBANY, N.Y. — Federal investigators examining the 2018 crash of a stretch limousine that killed 20 people said Tuesday that state regulators repeatedly failed to oversee a poorly maintained vehicle with corroded brakes.
National Transportation Safety Board members are expected to vote later Tuesday on a final report on the deadliest transportation disaster in the United States in a decade. The crash killed 17 family members and friends, including four sisters and three of their husbands, along with the driver and two bystanders outside a country store.
“Seventeen young people made the smart, safe decision to arrange for sober transportation when celebrating,“board member Michael Graham said during an online hearing. “They put their trust and safety into system designed to protect them, and it failed.”
The NTSB found that the crash was likely caused by the operator’s “egregious disregard for safety” that resulted in brake failure on a long downhill stretch, and that ineffective state oversight also contributed.
Staff members told the board that the limousine’s brake system was corroded and that the brake line was crimped, which would have restricted amount of fluid able to flow to the right rear brake. In addition, parts of the line were coated in brake fluid, indicating a leak.
Staffers said properly functioning and well-maintained brakes would have been able to stop at the bottom of the hill.
The NTSB last month released a cache of documents indicating Nauman Hussain, the operator of Prestige Limousine, repeatedly changed the listed number of seats in the 2001 Ford Excursion limo and took other steps to avoid safety regulations.
Staffers told board members Tuesday that the state Department of Motor Vehicles failed to verify vehicle registration forms and that the state Department of Transportation failed at least seven times to keep the company, Prestige Limousine, from operating without authority.
NTSB Chairperson Robert Sumwalt also criticized the local prosecutor and state police for failing to cooperate with the agency and delaying the completion of the investigation to almost two full years after the crash.
“Unfortunately, the parallel criminal investigation conducted by the Schoharie County District Attorney’s Office and the New York State Police significantly impeded and curtailed our typical investigative efforts,” Sumwalt said in his opening statement. “Particularly early in our investigation, some NTSB investigators were outright blocked from even viewing, let alone examining, critical evidence.”
The ill-fated limousine had been rented to take a group of young friends and siblings to a 30th birthday celebration at a brewery near Cooperstown on Oct. 6, 2018. The vehicle’s brakes failed on a downhill stretch of a state route in Schoharie, 30 miles west of Albany.