Lengthy collision probe likely
MONTREAL — The investigation into a deadly crash that killed 15 people in northeastern Saskatchewan last Friday will be a long and painstaking one, according to several collision experts.
Retired RCMP collision analyst Rob Creasser said months of work could lie ahead for the analysts and reconstruction experts who are tasked with piecing together the circumstances that caused the collision between a semi truck and a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos hockey team.
Weather, skid marks, visibility, speed and the mechanical condition of the vehicles are just a few of the factors that will be analyzed to reconstruct the crash, said Creasser, a 28-year veteran with the RCMP in B.C.
“It’s almost physics,” he said in a phone interview. “Two objects come together and they depart at different angles, and you’re looking for any indication of braking, skid marks, gouge marks on the roadway, that kind of thing.”
Creasser said the initial gathering of information at the scene takes hours or days, as investigators try to find clues and work to create a comprehensive map that includes the location of each piece of debris and the vehicles’ resting places.
But analyzing that data can take much longer.
Computer simulations, he said, will recreate the moments leading to the crash, while a parallel investigation will analyze witness and survivor statements.
There are also vehicle maintenance reports to obtain, and mechanics to be brought in to examine the engines of the shattered vehicles for any defects.
“When there’s a human death, there’s an autopsy,” he said. “Well, this is the autopsy of the vehicles.”
In Friday’s crash, the truck was heading west at the intersection south of Nipawin when it collided with the bus. The force of the crash propelled both vehicles into the ditch at the northwest corner of the intersection.
Aerial footage showed the bus on its side, its roof peeled back and its front end destroyed.
The trailer of the truck lay nearby in a shattered mess, with bags of its peat moss cargo scattered all around.
The truck would have had to yield to a stop sign before crossing over the highway the hockey bus was travelling on. There is a stand of trees on the southeast corner of the intersection, limiting visibility of the approach on both roads.
In the case of the Humboldt crash, “the scene talks a lot,” according to former Quebec provincial police crash expert Pierre Bellemare.
Bellemare, who retired in 2005 after 25 years of service, said that since the road travelled by the bus didn’t have a stop sign, investigators will have to determine whether the semi came to a full stop at the intersection.
That, he said, will involve speaking to survivors and any witnesses, confirming the truck’s speed, load, and mechanical condition, and checking for anything that might have impeded the driver’s field of vision.
Jason Young, president of Toronto-based reconstruction company Advantage Forensics, said analysts will look at the intersection’s history of collisions and make sure the road meets Canadian design standards for safety and visibility.
All three experts agree that an investigation such as the Humboldt one is likely to take time, involving input from police, reconstruction experts, government agencies, mechanics and engineers.