Schoharie limousine had its orig ins in Ozarks

Firm that stretched SUV was never registered, federal investigators say

Federal transportation investigators have traced the origins of t he stretch Ford Excursion involved in last year ’s Schoharie limo crash to a dust y stretch of road in t he Ozarks.

In a 36- page report made public last week, the National Transportation Safety Board asserts that the original owner of the Excursion, Larry Macera of Rensselaer, purchased the stretch limo in 2001 from a Rogers ville, Missouri, company called 21 st Century Coach Inc.

Macera ultimately sold his fleet of limos to Advantage Transit Group in Albany about si x years later. The Excursion was then sold again in 2016 to the Hussain family, which owned a motel in Wilton and operated a small limousine service on the side.

Nauman Hussain, who managed the limo service for his fat her, Sha hed Hussain, is now facing 20 counts each of man slaughter and criminally negligent homicide for each of the 20 people killed in the Oct. 6,2018, crash. Prosecutors allege Nauman Hussain knew the vehicle was dangerous to drive. A State Police report found that “catastrophic” brake failure was the cause of the crash.

Although t he Excursion was originally made at a Ford plant in Kentucky, companies like Ford don’t actually make stretch

limousines, which are simply cut in two and then elongated in auto shops and out fitted with new interiors.

There hasn’t been any indication that the Excursion was structural ly unsound. Indeed, much of the cabin area of the 31- foot Excursion survived the crash, according to t he NTSB, which found that none of the limo’s 17 passengers was wearing a seat belt.

During the heyday of the stretch limo industry, many of the limo coach builders were located in and around Springfield, Missouri, including 21 st Century Coach, which was 20 miles east of the city.

The NTSB says it knows little about 21 st Century Coach, which the agency says never registered with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’ s manufacturers database.

The Excursion also did not have a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards tag that was required to be affixed to the door of the limo to certify that the company that stretched the vehicle had done it in accordance with federal safety standards.

A New York state Department of Transportation investigator who inspected t he Excursion in March 2018 had also noted the tag was missing , which is a major safety violation.

“The information required on this additional label includes the name of the alter er, the date alterations were completed, and the altered gross weight rating and gross axle rating if changed during the alteration process ,” the NTSB report states. “A lt hough required to have this additional label, the label was not present on t he accident limousine.”

In an interview last week, NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said his investigators couldn’t verify that the Excursion ever had a final FM VS Stag, which is required under both state and federal law.

“We found no evidence of it ,” Sum walt said.

Are view of corporate filings made in Missouri around 2001 found that two companies with slight variations of the 21 st Century name were formed around t hat time, and both were located in the same nondescript industrial building on White Oak Road in Rogers ville. Both ceased doing business by 2003.

One called 21 st Century Coach was ow ned by Mike Bushong, who died in 2017 at age 50. Another, called 21 st Century Coach Works, was owned by James Hill, who died in 2006 at age 60. Neither of t heir widows could be reached for comment to clea r up which company may have ultimately stretched t he Schoharie limo.

“That is part of the ongoing investigation, a lt hough it should be in the final report ,” NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss told t he Times Union last week.

A third company called 21 st Century Limousine Sales was created in 2004; it also operated out of the White Oak Road building , which was leveled sometime after 2014 based on a review of Google Street View and satellite photos of the property. Mark Speake, listed as the owner of 21 st Century Limousine

Sales, could not immediately be reached for comment on the history of the company.

Nauman Hussain,t he operator of the limo company that owned the Excursion at the time of t he crash, is scheduled to go on trial in March. He and his father, who is living in Pakistan, are also facing a variety of civil lawsuits brought against them by the families of the victims. The latest suit was filed Monday by t he mother of Matthew Coons, according to WTEN. She is represented by attorney Michael Smrtic, who did not immediately return a call for comment.