20 people killed when limousine strikes pedestrians at State Route 30 and State Route 30A in Schoharie, New York

The Times Union of Albany reported local officials said a limo speeding down a hill crashed into bystanders at the Apple Barrel Country Store on Saturday in Schoharie (skoh-HAY’-ree).

Schoharie Town Supervisor Alan Tavenner said Saturday that improvements the state Department of Transportation made about seven years ago to the dangerous intersection didn't seem to make it safer.

Relatives said the limousine was carrying the sisters and their friends to a 30th birthday celebration for the youngest.

The limo company owner, Shahed Hussain, has been located but is currently out of the country, state police said in a news conference Monday afternoon. Three vehicles have been seized in the investigation, and authorities are examining the airbag control module in the crashed limo -- essentially the black box. 

In a letter made public Thursday, an NTSB lawyer told Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery that “safety-critical evidence” has been lost because her office had refused to let investigators fully inspect the modified stretch limo that crashed in Schoharie on Oct. 6.

NTSB spokeswoman Dolline Hatchett said Thursday that prosecutors had been preventing access because the search warrant for the vehicle didn’t explicitly include the federal agency. A Schoharie County judge ruled Wednesday that NTSB’s statutory authority grants it access, Hatchett said. 

Nauman Hussain, 29, operator of Prestige Limousine, was released on $450,000 bond after his arraignment in Schoharie County Court and will be subject to electronic monitoring until his Sept. 9 trial. He had been free on $150,000 bond since his arrest in October.

The families are seeking passage of proposed legislation that would require new limousines to come with lap-and-shoulder belts for every seat.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s docket on the Oct. 6, 2018, crash in rural Schoharie contains dozens of documents, including an inspection report highlighting brake problems that hadn’t been fixed since a previous inspection.

The board meeting Tuesday is for members to assess the NTSB's analysis of the factual data and the draft report. Along with voting on a probable cause and any changes to that draft report, the board will discuss policy recommendations.

National Transportation Safety Board members unanimously voted to accept a final report that found widespread fault in the 2018 crash in upstate New York.

In a shocking development Wednesday, Aug. 31, Schoharie County Judge Peter Lynch said Nauman Hussain should spend between 16 months and four years in prison, a revelation that garnered applause from victims’ families in the courtroom.

His attorneys filed an appeal requesting the appellate division of state Supreme Court to step in and make a decision on whether to prevent the case from going to trial, the Times Union reported.