Deadly tour bus crash leaves 4 dead on Interstate 95 in Virginia

Four passengers heading back to Chinatown were killed and dozens of others were hurt Tuesday when their New York City-bound bus roared off the highway in Virginia and flipped over on its roof.

The accident paralyzed northbound traffic on Interstate 95 for hours as rescue crews raced to the scene and removed moaning riders from the mangled motor coach.

The Sky Express Bus, which left Greensboro, N.C. at 10:30 p.m. Monday, was carrying 59 passengers when it strayed off a highway and hit an embankment around 5 a.m. The crash was about 30 miles north of Richmond, Va.

The only person who wasn't hurt was the driver - and he may have fallen asleep at the wheel, said Sgt. Thomas Molnar of the Virginia State Police.

"The bus ran off of the right side of the road and overtued -- coming to rest upside down on its roof," , added Corinne Geller, a spokeswoman for the State Police.

The driver was not identified and was cooperating with investigators.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper reported the Charlotte, N.C.-based bus company had a "troubled inspection history."

Also, Sky Express scored worse than 99% of the motor coach companies surveyed in the past two years by the feds in the "driver fitness" category.

The injured were taken to Richmond and Fredericksburg-area hospitals.

There has been more attention on bus safety following a March 12 accident in the Bronx when a motor coach retuing from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut toppled off an elevated highway and hit a utility pole, peeling off the roof and killing 15 people.

Following that tragedy, the feds did nearly 2,800 spot safety checks of passenger buses across the country from March 28 through April 6 - and yanked about 10% of the vehicles or drivers off the road.