Farmingdale High School band bus crash NTSB documents released: Driver said tire blowing was 'my nightmare'

The National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday released the first public account of the 2023 Farmingdale High School band bus crash given by the woman who was at the wheel.

"I heard the boom, and the steering wheel whipped out of my hands, so I knew exactly what it was. I knew it was a front blowout.," driver Lisa Schaffer said in a Sept. 24, 2023, NTSB interview from a Middletown, New York, hospital.

She said she tried to grab the wheel again but could not, saying: "All I could see was my nightmare. That’s always been my nightmare. The curve of the road, nothing past it, and there I was. I was going. I couldn’t pull it back. So, it was going over."

" ... And it was (snap) like that ..." she said. "I didn’t see anything in the road prior to. I know it was on a curve, because I’m looking over the edge. And that’s how quick it was."

Schaffer said she next remembered sitting on the ground outside the bus.

"I mean, people came to me, and they said, are you all right? And I said, I have a broken leg and maybe a clavicle. I can’t get up. But check on the kids, check on the kids. I’m, you know, stable enough," she recalled.

The NTSB documents say in the seconds before the crash, the bus was going 70.8 mph in a 65 mph speed zone. They do not say whether speed was a factor in the crash.

Asked by the interviewer if she recalled chaperones talking to children about using seat belts, she said no but added it was typical for seat belts on such trips not to be used. New York State law does not require seat belt use on charter buses, though there is pending legislation in Albany that would change that.

Trove of documents released

That interview was among a trove of documents related to an ongoing NTSB investigation of the Sept. 21, 2023, bus crash that killed two beloved educators, Gina Pellettiere, 43 of Massapequa, and Beatrice Ferrari, 77, of Farmingdale, and injured dozens of students. The documents cover, among other subjects, lack of seat belt use and the failure of a bus tire that led to the crash, though they do not assign responsibility for the crash.

The documents reveal at least 41 of 44 bus occupants — including the driver — were not wearing seat belts when the bus careened off the side of the highway in Orange County, en route to the band’s annual retreat at a camp in Greeley, Pennsylvania.

According to the NTSB’s "Factual Report," three bus occupants said they were belted in, but their seat belts showed only signs of normal wear. The documents do not, however, say if lack of restraints contributed to injuries and deaths.

The documents also confirm a preliminary assessment by state police, previously reported by Newsday, that the failure of the bus’s left steering axle tire led to the crash. Sarah Sulick, a spokeswoman for the NTSB, said the documents released Wednesday represent a "collection of facts" typically released one year into a major investigation.

"This does not represent the final analysis of the NTSB’s findings," Sulick said, adding a final report, including conclusions and recommendations, can come up to two years after an incident.

Roughly 30 lawsuits have been filed in connection with the crash, mostly by parents of injured children, seeking damages against defendants including bus company Regency Transportation, Schaffer, the school district and Bridgestone Americas, maker of the tires on the bus. Most or all of those lawsuits appear to be ongoing.

The district declined to comment. A lawyer for Regency and the bus driver declined to comment on the NTSB document release, citing pending litigation.

In court filings, lawyers for the defendants have generally argued the lawsuits should be dismissed.

A spokesman for the state Department of Transportation said last week that Nesconset-based Regency’s operators were "in the process of transferring control of their fleet to a newly-registered entity called Tri State Coaches LLC. at the same address and with the same ownership."

Seat belt use a focus of NTSB probe

Seat belt use appeared to be a theme of investigators’ interviews with Farmingdale students. In a Nov. 9, 2023, interview with a trombonist, an interviewer asked: "Was there any kind of pre-trip briefing by the driver or the school or any kind of pamphlets that you recall?"

"There was a briefing about the exits," the trombonist answered. "There was no briefing about the seat belts." That student said he’d been wearing a seat belt for the entire trip, but had taken it off to go to the bathroom.

Other students, also asked if they were briefed about seat belts or emergency exits, said they had not been briefed about seat belts.

When the crash occurred, no state or federal law required seat belts to be used in charter buses, and experts told Newsday that, nationally, few passengers used them. A New York State bill passed in June would require charter bus passengers 8 years and older to use safety restraints on motor coaches. A violation could bring a $50 fine against passengers who refused. The bill passed the legislature, but has not been sent to Gov. Kathy Hochul.

According to the NTSB’s vehicle report, "Just prior to the loss of control, the left front tire suffered a tread separation resulting in rapid air loss, also known as a ‘blowout.' Several small and large sections of tread separated from the tire casing as the motorcoach left the roadway."

According to a report submitted by Bridgestone Americas, "The subject tire experienced a failure condition known as a tread/belt detachment. All makes, models, and sizes of truck/bus tires are subject to this typical failure condition. In this instance, the tread and belts separated and detached from the tire while the subject vehicle was in motion at highway speed. With the detachment of tread/belts, the casing of the tire ruptured, resulting in a rapid loss of inflation pressure."

That document continues: "It is also not known what object was involved in causing the damage to the subject tire. Tire impact damage is usually caused by the vehicle striking a road hazard, which may be an object deposited on the road (such as debris from vehicles or cargo) or a condition of the road (such as a pothole or curb)."

In NTSB interviews, many conducted at Farmingdale High School in days and weeks after the crash, students described a horrifying, almost incomprehensible crash scene.

"It took me around like 10 seconds to like catch my breath and like be able to breathe properly and, like, talk," one student said. "A lot of kids around me were, like, screaming."

Another recalled thinking: "there's no way that happened. Like, this has to be a dream."

With Michael Gormley