Tour bus rolls over on New York State Thruway in Orange County, 11 injured

A tour bus rolled over in the southbound lanes of the New York State Thruway in Plattekill, sending 11 passengers to area hospitals and shutting down part of the highway for hours in the morning rush.

New York State Police responded to the crash between Exits 17 and 18 in Ulster County. Reports placed the rollover at about 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on July 21, with one account pinning it to about 9:21 a.m. The bus was carrying nearly two dozen people, with about 23 passengers on board.

Emergency crews moved quickly to sort injuries at the scene. One report said six passengers suffered moderate injuries and five had minor injuries. At least 10 people were reported injured overall. The Thruway was partially closed as responders worked around the overturned bus and cleared debris, and traffic delays stretched for hours before lanes were reopened or partly cleared around 3 p.m.

The location mattered far beyond Plattekill. The southbound Thruway is a major corridor for commuters, long-distance travelers and tour traffic moving through the Hudson Valley, and the rollover forced drivers to slow or stop as troopers and emergency crews worked the scene. Local outlets published photos from the crash site the same day, capturing the scale of the disruption on one of the region’s busiest highways.

Some early coverage mistakenly referred to Orange County, but the crash happened in Plattekill in Ulster County. The confusion did little to change the immediate impact for travelers who were trapped in delays and for the passengers whose trip ended in an emergency response.

Questions remained about the bus’s origin and destination, as well as the road conditions at the time of the rollover. The crash also revived concern about a pattern of serious bus wrecks on New York highways, including a previous fatal Thruway tour-bus rollover in Pembroke in western New York that killed five people.