Virginia bus crash kills five, including children, injures 44 on I-95

Investigators are examining why a charter bus on southbound I-95 failed to slow in a work zone near Quantico and slammed into six vehicles, killing five people and injuring about 44 others. Virginia State Police said the crash happened at about 2:35 a.m. Friday at mile marker 146 in Stafford County, about two miles south of the Quantico exit, as traffic had slowed in the construction area.

The bus first struck a Chevrolet Suburban, pushing it into an Acura SUV and other vehicles before the Acura caught fire, police said. The bus continued into more vehicles and ended on the median. Two children were among the dead, according to NBC News. NBC4 Washington reported that four of the victims were inside the Acura, a 45-year-old man, a 44-year-old woman, a 13-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy from Greenfield, Massachusetts. A 25-year-old woman from Worcester, Massachusetts, who was in the Suburban, also died.

Three people were reported in critical condition, and about 44 people were taken to hospitals. Cell phone video captured passengers scrambling out of the bus after the collision, a scene that underscored how quickly the chain-reaction crash turned deadly along one of the East Coast’s busiest highways.

The bus driver, a 48-year-old Staten Island, New York, resident, was injured. Police said potential charges were pending and that they were examining the driver’s actions before the crash. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the driver is a U.S. citizen originally from China who does not speak English, and said the U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating the driver’s history and licensing record in New York, where he received a commercial license in 2024.

The crash shut down southbound I-95 in the Quantico area and added to a troubling pattern of deadly charter-bus wrecks across the country. As families in Massachusetts and Virginia absorb the loss of children and adults pulled from the wreckage, the case now raises urgent questions about commercial bus oversight, driver vetting and the safety of passengers traveling through work zones where traffic slows without warning.