Coach crash in Switzerland kills 28 people including 22 children

[Moglet]

These seem to be getting more and more common. Another tragic loss of children's lives:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17370278

Investigators do not yet no what caused it, but the coach is a wreck and it clearly hit the tunnel wall at a fairly high speed. It will be interesting to see what the investigators make of it since both drivers were killed in the crash.



What do you think? A simple mistake? Speeding? Even tiredness? It certainly seems to come up a lot in these sorts of accidents but it's going to be difficult to tell from this crash from the looks of things.

 

[mattythedog]

Very sad. Must've been horrible for the parents not knowing whether their child was alive or not. I can't imagine what they are/were going through. Personally I reckon tiredness, but having been on long coach journeys with my school I know the drivers swap regularly, so that is probably unlikely.

 

[poolhaas]

I live 20 minutes away from the school in Lommel, don't know any of the parents myself but someone at work does.
Having to board a plane to Switzerland not knowing if your child is one of the victims must be heart breaking, especially when you know that some parents have received word from their children via cellphone.

Terrible thing that's happened, don't know if it has to do with speeding, you can see the bus crashed against a flat side of concrete. It doesn't take a very high speed to get serious damage.

My thoughts go out to the family, friends and classmates of those who passed

 

[Bram Turismo]

The bus first drove into the tunnel wall, and then hit a concrete wall frontally in which what I'm now calling the safety pocket inside a tunnel is; the area in which there is room for a vehicle to be placed in case of it breaking down.

Assuming the speed limit is 80 km/h, I don't think I need to describe the horror of a bus filled with children driving into a concrete wall at this speed. My thought go out to all friends and family of the victims.

 

[wfooshee]

Not trying to belittle the tragedy at all, but those who are looking at this as somehow a fault with the bus or its driver, and that someone should be called to task for it, consider:

In looking at the body damage to the bus, you must realize that buses are not built to the same body crush standards that personal cars are. It's simply a sheet-metal shell on a frame, not even as strong as a basic wood-frame house.

Notice that they're towing the bus by the front suspension, which shows that the heavy structure is still in place. The sheet metal shell is seriously damaged, but that's not structural the way it would be in a personal car.

Buses are not safe vehicles. They usually have no seat belts, and the bodywork is only strong enough to hold itself up in the wind. Take the side cover off of your PC and look at it. It may be heavier than the bodywork steel of a bus.

So there's no reason to assume the bus was speeding. It doesn't take much effort for any amount of kinetic energy to damage a thin hollow shell.

Could have been as simple as an unsafe lane change by other traffic that the bus driver tried to avoid.

 

[Moglet]

Not trying to belittle the tragedy at all, but those who are looking at this as somehow a fault with the bus or its driver, and that someone should be called to task for it, consider:

In looking at the body damage to the bus, you must realize that buses are not built to the same body crush standards that personal cars are. It's simply a sheet-metal shell on a frame, not even as strong as a basic wood-frame house.

Notice that they're towing the bus by the front suspension, which shows that the heavy structure is still in place. The sheet metal shell is seriously damaged, but that's not structural the way it would be in a personal car.

Buses are not safe vehicles. They usually have no seat belts, and the bodywork is only strong enough to hold itself up in the wind. Take the side cover off of your PC and look at it. It may be heavier than the bodywork steel of a bus.

So there's no reason to assume the bus was speeding. It doesn't take much effort for any amount of kinetic energy to damage a thin hollow shell.

Could have been as simple as an unsafe lane change by other traffic that the bus driver tried to avoid.

I'm not sure if anyone has suggested that the coach was actually speeding, I simply put it forward as a possibility. As you said, although the damage looks bad it could have been caused by an accident at normal speeds, especially considering it hit a solid wall.

 

[BobK]

What do you think? A simple mistake? Speeding? Even tiredness? It certainly seems to come up a lot in these sorts of accidents but it's going to be difficult to tell from this crash from the looks of things.

Anything I might think after watching that video would be useless speculation. The only hard fact is that the bus was involved in a head-on collision according to the video. No information at all on what it collided with or the circumstances surrounding the collision. Furthermore the newsclip asserts it hit the wall (which I don't usually consider a "head-on" collision; head-on collisions involve another vehicle). Could have been a tired driver, could have been an invisible pink unicorn; both equally possible based on what I know from the video and story.

I'm sure that they're investigating and will come up with plausible theories. But until then speculation on our part is ludicrous.

 

[Rykon Zero]

Well, considering I'm packing up for a bus tour through Europe in two days, I'm slightly less than thrilled to see that.

True shame what happened here, children never deserve this sort of fate.

 

[mister dog]

I'm Belgian and as it is all over our news now sadly... first indications say speeding was not the cause as the tunnel was full of cameras investigators already saw the footage. Apparently the bus lost control when hitting the right curb with one of its tyres, when that curb stopped it hit that stupid wall there frontal without any protection at 50km/h.

Also it's said almost all passengers were wearing their safety belts.


It's quite an eye opener towards the safety of buses, if you see the damage from a frontal impact at 50 an hour, they test cars at euro ncap at that speed...
The bus was crushed like a can, with the whole frontal part caved in.

My condolences to all the families involved, terrible and very unlucky coincidence that destroyed a lot of innocent lives.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

What a terrible accident. My sincerest condolences to all parents involved, I can't imagine waiting to hear if my child is alive or not.

 

[lbsf1]

On bus's like this one they were also lucky that it had a side exit meaning that they could all get out relatively easily. On the Coach I take to school and most coaches I have been on only have the front exit and the exit at the back that has a 6 foot drop to the ground, imagine the crush trying to get out of that.

So far the reports seem to suggest that it was just driver error then hitting the kerb and loosing control. RIP to those who died and wishing a speedy recovery to those who are injured.

 

[a6m5]

What a tragedy. It's hard to read about something like this without getting emotional.

Good info by wfooshee on the structure of buses. I had no idea.

 

[berty1979]

Very sad indeed. I used to drive coaches on the continent for a job and it seemed so easy with regular driver swaps and breaks.
The bus looks like a Neoplan which would be a traditional chassis (solid) with a lightweight skin to form the actual bodywork, not a good recipe for arguments with concrete 👎

 

[poolhaas]

Latest news stories say the bus driver was starting up a DVD moments before the crash.
The children who survived told the medical staff a teacher was bringing a DVD to the busdriver, but the bus company themself say the children couldn't see what the busdriver was doing exactly because the design of the interior doesn't have a view of the area where the busdriver was seated from the kids viewpoint.

So it's still a guess to what's really happened