Doubts over horror bus crash driver's story

A NEW YORK bus driver involved in a crash that killed 14 of his passengers on Saturday has had his story that his vehicle was clipped by a truck contradicted by witnesses.

Passengers said driver Ophadell Williams swerved at times to the right for no reason before sliding off the road at dawn on Saturday and into a sign post. Many of the passengers on the bus were residents of Manhattan's Chinatown. Mr Williams remained hospitalised in serious condition yesterday and has not commented publicly.

He had told police that a tractor-trailer clipped his World Wide Tours bus just as it crossed the New York City line on a trip from a casino in Connecticut. The victims had travelled for a overnight trip to the casino and were returning to Chinatown.

Captain Matthew Galvin of the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit was one of the first rescuers on the scene. He said when officers clambered into the wreckage, they found "bodies everywhere."

The crash happened at 5:35am local time on Saturday, with some of the 31 passengers still asleep. The bus scraped along a guard rail for 300 feet, toppled and crashed into a support pole for a large highway sign.

The 14 victims - eight men and six women - all died of blunt force trauma, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner's office.