FLUSHING, Queens (WABC) -- Three people were killed and 16 injured when an MTA bus and a charter bus collided in Queens early Monday.
The Q20 bus collided with the Dahlia charter bus at Main Street and Northern Boulevard in Flushing around 6:15 a.m., and authorities were investigating reports that the charter bus had run a red light.
The NYPD and FDNY responded to the scene and began removing passengers.
"It was bad, it was really bad," witness Mike Ramos said. "I felt the vibrations shake my truck...I saw a guy with a cracked head, a cracked skull open. I saw guys bleeding all over the place...When I ran across the street, there was a woman pinned, screaming in the back of the city bus. I guess she was one of the pedestrians walking on the sidewalk."
PHOTOS: Scene of deadly bus crash in Queens
All of the victims were quickly taken off the buses, with the exception of one of the drivers, who was pinned in the bus and needed to be extricated. One person was pronounced dead at the scene after being found underneath one of the buses, leading authorities to believe that person may have been a pedestrian.
The victims were rushed to area hospitals, where two of them passed away and five remain listed in critical condition. The driver of the private bus and a passenger on the MTA bus were identified as those who died at the hospital.
The MTA driver, a 10-year veteran, "is in the hospital in non-critical condition, he's being spoken to," authorities said.
The force of the collision sent the charter bus onto the sidewalk and into a Kennedy Fried Chicken, sparking a small fire. The flames were quickly extinguished, but there is extensive damage to the structure.
The cause of the crash is under investigation, but one witness who was in a car that was nearly struck by the charter bus said it was speeding and ran several lights.
"I looked up, and I see this bus fly right by us," Sheila Baez said. "He flew, we was at the red light, he flew right by us. He passed the red light...speeding. He went past the red light, he went passed the other red light, and smacked into the bus. He hit the bus...He ended up on the sidewalk, then smacked into the building. That's what we saw."
An eyewitness sats the charter bus driver involved in a deadly Queens bus crash ran two red lights before the accident.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio visited the accident scene, calling it "a really tragic morning here in Queens."
"It's hard to compare it to anything I've ever seen, the sheer destruction from the impact of this collision," de Blasio said.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio talked to reporters after visiting the bus accident scene in Flushing, Queens where 3 people died.
The NTSB is sending team to New York City to investigate the crash.
Another Dahlia charter bus was involved in a 2016 bus crash on Interstate 95 in Connecticut that killed one and injured 36.
In that incident, the driver lost control on the snow-covered highway, skidded off the road and rolled over. The bus was being operated by VMC East Coast at the time. It appears the company that owns the buses was most recently flagged by Federal DOT for a high number of safety violations, including 10 in the last 24 months for speeding. It's not clear if the bus in Monday's incident was being leased by another operator.
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Three people died and 16 others were hurt when a private tour bus ran a red light, smashed into an MTA bus and careened into a row of Queens storefronts, sparking a fire.
The Q20 bus was making a right turn on Northern Boulevard from Main Street shortly before 6:30 a.m. when the bus, which read Dahlia on the back, struck it as it was traveling east on Northern Boulevard, police said at a news conference.
Multiple angles from surveillance video obtained by News 4 show the Dahlia bus running a red light, then smashing into the back of the MTA bus before careening into a nearby building. When investigators picked up the speedometer from the tour bus at the scene, it was frozen at 60 mph, sources said.
One pedestrian pinned under the bus on the sidewalk died at the scene, authorities said. Seven people were taken to the hospital with critical injuries; two of them later died, including the driver of the Dahlia tour bus.
The driver of the MTA bus is hospitalized with non-critical injuries, officials said. There were 15 people on the bus at the time.
Though the frozen speedometer isn't an indication of how fast the bus was going when it hit the MTA bus, it's clear from the surveillance video the tour bus was going well over the 25 mph limit in the area.
"These buses spun around," MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said at the news conference. "That requires an enormous amount of speed."
A National Transportation Safety Board team arrived Monday afternoon to investigate the deadly crash. A spokesman for the independent federal agency, which investigates and determines the causes of transportation accidents across the U.S., said the case is of interest to them because it involved two buses. The agency is expected to hold a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.
"It's just shocking to see the scene over there," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news briefing near the crash site Monday. "It's hard to compare it to anything I've ever seen, the sheer destruction."
He added, "One of those who was lost was simply walking down the sidewalk... and out of nowhere this happens."
Video from the scene showed dozens of first responders swarming the two buses; passengers were pulled from the wreckage and lifted down on stretchers into an ocean of firefighters.
Sources say the MTA driver pried open the doors of his bus and got his passengers off. The Q20, which runs from Jamaica to College Point, was about midpoint on the route.
Shabir Farhad was on his way to work at Kennedy Fried Chicken, where he's a manager, when he witnessed the tour bus barreling into the building.
"I'm here day and night. Day and night. It's shocking. Thank God none of us was there," he said. "It's just a shocking moment -- a feeling like you can't express right now."
Heavy traffic delays were expected in the area as authorities canvassed the scene. Investigators were also assessing the building the bus crashed into in order to determine whether it was safe for people to be in and around. De Blasio said the impact on the building was "very, very substantial."
3 Dead After Buses Collide in QueensTwo buses collided in Queens Monday morning, killed at least 3 people. (Published Monday, Sept. 18, 2017)
The mayor says authorities will work through the morning and afternoon to clear the area and get things back to normal as soon as possible.
The MTA is also investigating.
"We want to make sure we understand what happened and prevent this from ever happening again," said Lhota, who appeared alongside the mayor at the news briefing Monday.
According to federal records, Dahlia drivers have been cited for several safety violations, including failing to obey a traffic signals, speeding and unlawful parking in the roadway in the last year.
One of the company's buses was also involved in a February 2016 crash that left one person dead and 36 others. The bus was en route from Manhattan to the Mohegan Sun casino in eastern Connecticut when it overturned on a snow-covered Interstate 95 east of New Haven.
Last winter a Dahlia bus was also involved in a fatal crash in Connecticut when a Dahlia bus heading for a casino crashed on I-95 killing one person and dozens were injured.
A person answering the phone at the company declined to comment; there was no immediate response to an emailed request seeking comment.