In a recent letter sent to Susan J. Mallery, district attorney in Schoharie County, where the wreck occurred, the National Transportation Safety Board said that its investigators “have been denied access to the crash vehicle, the other vehicles operated by the company and relevant reports and records” related to the Oct. 6 accident in Schoharie, about 40 miles west of Albany.
“We are gravely concerned that your lack of responsiveness to our requests has seriously impeded our abilities to carry out our congressionally-mandated duties to properly complete this safety investigation and potentially prevent similar accidents in the future,” wrote the board’s general counsel, Kathleen Silbaugh. The letter, dated Dec. 14, was first reported by WRGB in Albany.
Among the items sought by federal investigators are photographs and video of the wrecked limo, a modified 2001 Ford Excursion, which careened down a country highway with 17 members of a birthday party on board. It sped through a busy intersection before striking another vehicle and landing in a shallow gully.
All 17 passengers — including four sisters and a newlywed couple — were killed, along with two pedestrians and the limousine’s driver, who was later found not to have the proper license.
The NTSB is an independent federal agency that investigates major transportation accidents. Its mandate is to recommend improvements; it does not have the authority to prosecute.
Federal authorities said they have not been permitted to look inside the limo itself in order to inspect its braking systems, which had failed state inspections, or to examine structural modifications made to increase the car’s occupancy.
In addition, the board has unsuccessfully sought access to other vehicles owned by Prestige Limousine, the upstate company that owned the vehicle. The company’s operator, Nauman Hussain, was arrested shortly after the accident and charged with criminally negligent homicide.
Mallery’s office is in charge of prosecuting Hussain and has been central to the criminal investigation. Because of that, Silbaugh said, federal authorities have allowed Schoharie County first access to the evidence.
But while some information has been shared with the transportation board, including state transportation reports and information on the victims’ families, Silbaugh wrote that access to “primary, essential evidence” has been delayed, resulting in “safety-critical evidence being lost.”
The board also expressed concern about the storage of the vehicle and any parts that may have been removed from it, as well as possible contamination or degradation of evidence.
“During this two-month period, key perishable investigative information may have been lost because you denied the NTSB the necessary access,” Silbaugh wrote, noting that the board’s team has not been able to inspect for possible corrosion of parts or the status of the limousine’s electrical system.
On Thursday, state police said that their investigation of the accident was ongoing and forwarded questions on the NTSB’s letter to Schoharie County officials. Mallery, the county district attorney, did not immediately return requests for comment.
In their letter, federal authorities said that Mallery had not been responsive to their requests. “What we have been told is that your schedule is full,” Silbaugh wrote, “and you are too busy to respond.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.