New York State Police said in a news release on Saturday that Shankar Kumar Jha, 65, of Madhubani, India; Pinki Changrani, 60, of East Brunswick, New Jersey; Columbia University student Xie Hongzhuo, 22, of Beijing, China; Zhang Xiaolan, 55, of Jersey City, New Jersey; and Jian Mingli, 56, of Jersey City, died in the crash.

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.