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There have been a number of serious coach accidents in recent years. © Jan Woitas/dpa
Four women died in the serious bus accident near Leipzig. The day after the accident, many questions remain. The public prosecutor's office is targeting the bus driver.
Leipzig/Wiedemar - After the serious bus accident on Autobahn 9 near Leipzig, the police have published information about the identity of the victims. Accordingly, the four people killed were women. A 47-year-old Polish woman, a 20-year-old Indonesian woman living in Berlin and a 19-year-old from Bavaria died in the accident, the police said. The identity of the fourth woman has not yet been clarified beyond doubt.
The double-decker Flixbus with 54 people on board, including the two drivers, left the road on Wednesday morning, crashed into the grass verge and tipped over on its side. Four people died, 6 were seriously injured and 29 were slightly injured. According to police, some of the seriously injured were operated on shortly after the accident and are still being treated in clinics. Many of those affected were released from hospitals after treatment for minor injuries, the police said.
Investigations against the driver
The public prosecutor's office has now started an investigation against the bus driver. The accusation against the 62-year-old is negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm, as a spokesman for the authority said on Thursday. The spokesman could not say whether the man had already been questioned.
Investigating the causes is now the focus of the investigators. All injured people who are being treated in a hospital should also be questioned if their health permits it, as a spokeswoman for the Leipzig Police Department said on Thursday when asked. According to the public prosecutor's office, an accident analysis report on the bus will also be commissioned. The authority spokesman emphasized that the first results could only be expected in a few weeks.
The bus with more than 50 passengers and two drivers had an accident on the way from Berlin to Zurich. © Jan Woitas/dpa
According to the police, most of the bus passengers did not come from Germany. Of the 54 passengers, 18 have German citizenship. The rest came from more than 20 countries, including Peru, New Zealand, China, Canada and the USA.
No other vehicle was involved in the accident
The coach had an accident on the way from Berlin to Zurich. It started at 8:00 a.m. and the accident happened at around 9:45 a.m. between the Wiedemar junction and the Schkeuditzer Kreuz. According to initial findings, no other vehicle was probably involved. According to the bus company, the driver of the bus is said to have adhered to all driving and rest times. “There were two drivers on board, the driver on duty had been driving the bus since it left Berlin at 8 a.m.,” it said. The A9, an important north-south route between Berlin and Munich, was closed around the accident site for twelve hours.
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According to the bus company, the driver of the bus that crashed on the A9 is said to have adhered to all driving and rest times. © Jan Woitas/dpa
Before the emergency services arrived, a bus following had stopped at the scene of the accident. According to the “Saarbrücker Zeitung”, there were numerous firefighters from Saarbrücken sitting there who immediately rushed to the crashed coach. Accordingly, they had pulled the injured out of the rubble and treated them without professional equipment.
Buses are comparatively rarely involved in traffic accidents
There have been a number of serious coach accidents in recent years. Nevertheless, buses are one of the relatively safe means of transport. According to accident statistics, they are comparatively rarely involved in traffic accidents with personal injuries.
“However, cases in which accidents occur are often dramatic because the number of people affected can be high,” said an ADAC spokesman. According to the information, a total of eight people died in bus accidents inside and outside towns in 2022 - a number that is not unusual in long-term comparison.
The ADAC pointed out that seat belts in coaches have been mandatory since 1999. “It is not possible to understand whether and how individual companies check whether passengers are wearing seatbelts,” said the spokesman. Bus travelers are generally advised to fasten their seatbelts. In addition, according to ADAC, coaches must be equipped with a so-called lane departure warning system since 2022. It was initially not known whether the bus that crashed had one. Such a system warns the driver, but does not prevent the driver from actually leaving the road if they do not countersteer. dpa