Driver in fatal bus crash was drunk
The driver of a Taiwanese tour bus that crashed and burst into flames, killing all 26 people on board, including 23 Chinese tourists, was driving drunk, investigators say.
Police coroners in Taoyuan county, south of Taipei, said yesterday they had tested the driver’s blood, urine and stomach contents and found that all registered for alcohol concentrations above the legal limit.
The announcement adds to impressions that safety lapses led to the crash and the high loss of life.
Investigators said earlier they had found traces of petrol in the driver’s compartment and the luggage hold, raising the possibility that fuel was being stored on the bus for some reason.
A safety exit was also found to have been locked, trapping those on board.
Investigators still have not said what caused the bus to start emitting smoke before smashing into a guardrail in the July 19 disaster, which took place on the highway near Taiwan’s main international airport.
Twenty-four of those on board, including a tour guide, were visitors from northeast China’s Liaoning province who had been scheduled to fly home on the afternoon of the accident.
The others killed were the driver and a tour guide, both Taiwanese.
The disaster was the deadliest single incident involving Chinese tourists since Taiwan began admitting them to the self-governing island in 2008.
Many of them arrive on cheaply priced group tours that navigate the island’s highways and mountainous interior in large tour buses whose safety has been sometimes been questioned.