After spending the morning taking in the breathtaking sights at Niagara Falls, a group of tourists boarded a bus to return to New York City, not knowing about an hour later, their bus would be lying on its side in the ditch off the New York State Thruway.

In a statement on Saturday, New York State Police identified the five people who were killed in the crash as Shankar Kumar Jha, 65, of India, Pinki Changrani, 60, of New Jersey, Columbia University student Xie Hongzhuo, 22, of China, Zhang Xiaolan, 55, of New Jersey, and Jian Mingli, 56 of New Jersey.

Five people were killed and an unknown number of other passengers on the bus were injured after a tour bus they were traveling in rolled over while heading east on the New York Thruway in Pembroke, NY on Aug. 22, 2025. Police identified the five people who were killed in a tour bus crash in western New York on Friday.