MARJORIE COOK/STUFF

Emergency services are at the scene of a fatal car crash near Wanaka on Thursday.

One person is dead after a car crash-landed upside down in a creek in Central Otago.

Senior Sergeant Allan Grindell said he believed the dead person was the driver of the car, which crashed on the Wanaka-Mt Aspiring Rd on Thursday morning.

The road leads to the Treble Cone skifield.

A second person suffered "scratches and bumps", but was otherwise fine and had been taken to Wanaka.

The single-vehicle crash happened about 11.20am. It was reported to police by a passerby at about 11.38am.

It was near a small one-lane bridge, on an unsealed road, about 30 kilometres from Wanaka.

Grindell said the car had been travelling toward Wanaka from Mt Aspiring.

An ambulance, two fire engines and a helicopter also attended the crash scene. A funeral director was travelling to the site from Alexandra.

A police photographer and the serious crash unit had also been called.

The road was closed either side of the crash.

Earlier on Thursday, a bus drove off the road and crashed in a paddock off Lindis Pass-Tarras Rd.

Twenty-two people were on board, but no-one was injured.

 - Stuff