The non-English-speaking Staten Island charter bus driver involved in Friday’s catastrophic crash on I-95 in Virginia that killed five has been formally charged.
Virginia State Police announced Saturday that 48-year-old Jing S. Dong faces two counts of involuntary manslaughter, with additional charges likely in the wreck — in which the victims included a family headed to a wedding.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that Dong does not speak English, sparking an NTSB investigation into the driver’s language proficiency.
It is not immediately known if Dong is in custody or acquired legal counsel.
The development comes as federal investigators reveal the E&P Travel Inc. motorcoach was moving at a high rate of speed with little to no braking before slamming into a work-zone traffic backup near Quantico.
“It seems fairly clear that if there was any braking there wasn’t much, because of the speed and severity of the collision,” said Tom Chapman, an NTSB board member.
The victims have been identified as Priscilla Mafalda, 25, and a Massachusetts family of four — Dimitri and Ecaterina Doncev and their two children, Emily and Mark — who were traveling to a family wedding.
The bus was traveling from New York to Charlotte, North Carolina.
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