It looked like a scene from a movie or video game, Rob Glinski said. The large white bus in front of him on the New York State Thruway had been going over 70 miles an hour when it began swerving between lanes.

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.

The bus, which was carrying 54 people to New York City from Niagara Falls, veered off the New York State Thruway near Buffalo.