'My Nightmare' NTSB Releases Survivor Interviews On Deadly I-84 Crash

WAWAYANDA, NY — The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) findings into a tragic I-84 bus crash that killed two and injured dozens is not yet complete, but the agency has now released dozens of documents from the investigation, including transcipts of interviews with survivors.

The bus driver, Lisa Schaffer, who was ejected from the bus, recounted the final moments before the crash, telling investigators she believes the bus blew a tire.

"But that’s been my nightmare since I started driving, that I was going to go over something. Well, that happened," the driver told investigators. "And it was (snap) like that. And I knew the noise and I knew by the rip of the steering wheel exactly what it was. 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."

The transcript's release comes a year after the bus crash that changed a Long Island community forever.

On Thursday, September 21, 2023, around 1:12 p.m., the 2014 Prevost motorcoach was traveling westbound on Interstate 84 near Wawayanda, transporting 40 high school students and four adults from the Farmingdale School District to a band camp in Greeley, Pennsylvania, about 141 miles away.

Just after mile marker 12, the motorcoach departed the right lane, crossed the left lane and shoulder, and departed the westbound roadway. The motorcoach then struck and went through a roadside cable barrier and went down the depressed median between lanes. The motorcoach came to rest on its left side at the bottom of the ravine dividing the highway.

Several occupants were ejected from the motorcoach, including the driver and the two front-row adult occupants. Both front-row occupants were fatally injured, and the driver was seriously injured.

"I tried to pull back. I was so close to the edge already," Schaffer said in her interview. "I just, I knew. There wasn’t really anything I could do about it.

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