New Jersey school bus in horror crash which killed social studies teacher and one student was hit when the driver tried to make a sudden U-turn after missing an exit.

A New Jersey school bus which was involved in a horrifying highway crash on Thursday was hit by a dump truck as its driver tried to make a U-turn after missing the exit they were meant to take.

The crash was filmed on a Department of Transportation camera on I-80 near Mount Olive Township in New Jersey.
The driver was meant to have taken Exit 25 to Stanhope but missed it and instead carried on until it saw a police turnaround in the highway.

Despite it clearly being marked 'no turns', the driver attempted to make their way across the three lanes of traffic to get to it.

Footage has not been released but according to officials who have seen it, the crash unfolded when the school bus driver tried to switch lanes to make his U-turn.

That was when the bus was smashed into by the red Mendez Trucking dump truck which was traveling in the same direction. The bus carriage went flying off its chassis and into the median with all of the children inside.

There were 45 people on board; 38 fifth graders aged 10 or 11 and seven adults including the driver. Jennifer Williamson-Kennedy, 51, died. She was a beloved social studies teacher.

Her grieving husband released a statement on Thursday night to say he was 'totally crushed' by her death.  
One student, who has not been named, also died. 
The other 43 people on the bus were taken to hospital for treatment and some remain in a critical condition.

The transport officials who saw the footage told NBC that the bus had not yet managed to make the U-turn and that the dump truck was traveling in the same direction it was westbound.

The bus was one of three from East Brook Middle School in Paramus, New Jersey, which was taking children on the trip. 

The other two were in front of it and took the exit they were supposed to. 
When they arrived at Waterloo Village in Stanhope, it took several minutes for them to learn what had happened.

Staff did not tell children there had been an accident and instead boarded them back on to the buses claiming the trip had to be canceled because of bad weather.

Waterloo Village staff then helped them come up with a route back to the school which would not take them past the horrifying crash site, they said.

All of the surviving students were taken to six
 different area hospitals where some underwent surgery on Thursday.