Sky Express operator Kin Yiu Cheung, 37, of Flushing, Queens, was arrested on a charge of reckless driving, and ordered held in lieu of $3,000 bail, said Virginia State Police.
Cheung's bus left Greensboro, NC, at 10:30 p.m. Monday, and crashed at 4:55 a.m. in rural Caroline County, Va., about 30 miles north of Richmond and 300 miles from New York.
Inspectors "ruled out any mechanical errors or malfunctions as a causative factor" in the crash, police said. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating.
The bus ran off the right side of the road and rolled over onto its roof. Cheung and the 54 surviving passengers were treated for injuries that ranged from minor to life-threatening.
Virginia medical examiners were working yesterday to identify the dead, a spokeswoman said.
Sky Express has an atrocious safety record, federal government statistics show. Since January, the company has been cited 24 times for violating regulations designed to prevent driver fatigue.
The company did not return a phone message yesterday.
Fifteen people died in March when another Chinatown-bound bus crashed in The Bronx on its way from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut.
The crashes led New York state legislators yesterday to call for stricter rules on where intercity buses can pick up passengers.
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