No Injuries Reported After NYC-Boston BoltBus Catches Fire On Massachusetts Turnpike
UPDATED 05/12/15 12:34 a.m.
NEWTON, Mass. (CBSNewYork) -- A BoltBus caught fire Monday while on its way from New York City to Boston with nearly 50 people on board.
A spokesperson from Greyhound, which owns BoltBus, told CBS2 the bus was traveling eastbound on Interstate 90 in Newton, Massachusetts when the bus driver noticed smoke and pulled over around 5 p.m.
The bus driver then evacuated the 47 passengers on the bus and called authorities, the spokesperson said. None of the passengers were injured in the incident.
The bus had made a two hour stop in Connecticut to fix a problem, but was overtaken by flames just miles from their final stop.
Harvard student and Dix Hills resident Jake Freeman was one the people who evacuated the bus in time.
He said the problems began on I-95 in Connecticut when the driver announced that the bus was overheating.
"So we stopped at a rest stop. Everyone got off the bus and supposedly a mechanic was working on it. We were there for two hours," Freeman said.
Bus driver Nora Pacheco said she was given the all clear to continue the trip.
The real trouble started on the Mass Turnpike, about 12 miles from Boston.
"Supposedly someone said that a car came in front of us and, like, started waving our bus driver to the side, so we pulled over and she was screaming: 'You're on fire! You're on fire!" Freeman said. "So this was coming from the back of the bus, and I was actually one of the people in the way back, so right from there, we looked back, and you could see flames coming out from the sides of the windows in the back of the bus, so right from there, there was a little bit of a panic."
Another relief bus was sent from New York to the scene and was already en route to Boston with the passengers on board, the spokesperson said.
"We are fully cooperating with local authorities and the local fire department on the investigation and conducting an investigation of our own," the spokesperson said.
In a statement on Monday night, BoltBus added that the bus had experienced road failure previously, but was checked by a mechanic and the issue seemed to be rectified.
The operator of the bus reported an overheating alarm, and a dispatched advised the driver to pull over and call the maintenance response department, BoltBus said. The department in turn called a vendor to fix the bus, and after two hours of repairs, it looked like all was well, BoltBus said.
But the bus driver later called operations again reporting that the vehicle was overheating and smoking once more. The operations supervisor then told the driver to get all the passengers off to bus, and 10 to 15 minutes later, the bus was on fire, BoltBus said.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.
