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SCHOHARIE, NY (AP) – The oversized limousine involved in an accident that killed 20 people outside of a country store failed during a recent safety inspection and n ' should not have been on the road. said Monday.
The state ordered the closure of the owner, Prestige Limousine, while the investigation continues on the origin of Saturday's wreck at Schoharie.
"In my opinion, the owner of this company had no reason to put a vehicle down on the road," said Governor Andrew Cuomo at a Columbus Day parade in New York. "Prestige has a lot of questions to answer."
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration also said that it was investigating the accident, which involved an elongated limousine that, according to Cuomo, had been rebuilt in violation of federal law.
A call to the Prestige Limousine office in Gansevoort remained unanswered. Federal records show that the company has undergone five inspections and four vehicles have been removed from service in the last two years.
The accident killed two pedestrians and 18 occupants of the limousine, which was carrying four sisters, relatives and friends to a brewery for a birthday party, according to relatives.
Amanda Halse texted her own sister around 1 pm saying that she and her boyfriend, Patrick Cushing, had entered the limousine and that the group was heading to the Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown, according to her sister Karina. The accident occurred before she had a chance to answer.
"My heart is depressed, it's in a place where I've never felt that kind of pain before," Karina said during her visit Monday to the crash site.
Amanda, 26, a waitress in a retired community, was "a very strong and independent person" who did not like people to do things for her, according to her sister.
"It is she who will initiate things," she said.
The authorities did not specify whether the occupants of the limousine were wearing seat belts, whether the speed of the limousine was fast or what caused the limousine to stop a stop sign at an intersection and to hit an SUV parked near the Apple Barrel Country Store and Cafe.
Autopsies were performed, including on the driver, to see if the drugs were alcohol. Investigators are also looking to find out if the limo has mechanical problems.
The intersection is a place of known danger that has long worried residents, even after a review following a fatal accident in 2008, according to Jessica Kirby, head of Apple Barrel.
Since the reconstruction, three tractor-trailers have crossed the same stop sign and found themselves in a field behind her business, she said. Officials have worked with the state to ban heavy trucks, she said, but there are still wrecks.
"We are asking that something be done for years," she said in an email.
The Ford Excursion 2001 limousine was traveling southwest on Route 30 to Schoharie, about 170 kilometers north of New York, without stopping at a T-junction with Highway 30A, police said. The limousine crossed the street and hit an unoccupied SUV parked at the Apple Barrel, a local institution and a popular stop for fall leaf watchers. The impact killed two pedestrians standing nearby.
Relatives said the limousine was meant to celebrate the 30th birthday of the youngest of the four sisters.
"They had the responsibility to take a limo for not having to drive," said Barbara Douglas, their aunt, Sunday. "They were wonderful girls, they would do anything for you and they were very close to each other and they loved their family."
A vigil was scheduled Monday evening in Amsterdam, where some victims lived. Psychological assistance was offered in the school district of Amsterdam, where the victim Abby Jackson taught.
The accident appeared to be the deadliest land vehicle accident in the United States since a bus carrying patients to a retirement home away from Hurricane Rita caught fire in Texas in 2005, killing 23 people.
And it 's the most deadly transport accident in the country since February 2009, when a plane crash near Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people. people, said Robert Sumwalt, president of the National Transportation Safety Board.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were only 12 accidents involving large limousines during the five years for which the agency published statistics.
Twelve people were killed in limousine crashes during this period, from 2012 to 2016. During the same period, 171,508 people were killed in 157,451 collisions involving all types of vehicles.
There was no information Sunday on the limousine, its origin or its integrity. However, safety concerns on these vehicles have already arisen, especially after the destruction of a wreck on Long Island in July 2015, during which four women were killed.
They were in a Lincoln Town Car that had been disassembled and rebuilt in an expandable configuration to accommodate more passengers. The limo was trying to turn around and was hit by a van.
A grand jury found that vehicles converted into stretch limousines often lacked safety measures, including side airbags, roll-over protection bars, and accessible emergency exits. This grand jury asked Cuomo to form a working group on limousine safety.
Limos built in factories are already required to follow strict safety rules, but when cars are converted into limousines, security functions are sometimes removed, resulting in gaps in security protocols, wrote the grand jury .
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This story has been corrected to indicate the name of the city where some victims lived is Amsterdam, not New Amsterdam.
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Caserta reported from New York. Associate Press editors Michael Balsamo, Jennifer Peltz, Michael R. Sisak, Deepti Hajela and Verena Dobnik in New York contributed to this report; Bob Salsberg in Boston; and John Kekis in Latham, New York.
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