Crash coach driver may have been changing DVD
BELGIUM: Investigators are looking into the possibility that the driver of the Belgian coach that crashed into a tunnel wall killing 22 children and six adults was trying to play a DVD movie seconds before impact.
Young survivors of the accident have told their parents that he was seen trying to insert the disc as they drove along the A9 motorway in Switzerland on the way home from a skiing holiday.
The fear is that the driver – one of two who died – was distracted and lost control. It could explain why he hit a kerb and veered across two lanes and smashed into the right-angled shape of the emergency stop area on a relatively straight road in a two-mile stretch of tunnel.
The Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reported the claim yesterday.
It is known that children had watched the film Avatar on their outward journey to the Swiss ski resort of Val d’anniviers.
Renato Kalbermatten, a spokesman for the Swiss police, confirmed that the theory was being examined, although CCTV footage ‘‘did not make the situation clear’’.
The director of the Belgian Coach Operators Federation, Yves Mannaerts, said nothing would be ruled out of his organisation’s investigation.
It has hired a French expert in crash situations to conduct the inquiry. He admitted there was no set procedure for drivers changing DVDS or CDS during a journey.
‘‘It depends on the driver and the demands of the customers,’’ he said. ‘‘There is no set normal practice but of course the major task of the driver is to drive, not to put on DVDS.’’
He said sometimes the spare driver would operate the entertainment system and that it was up to the drivers to show common sense.
It is still not known which driver was at the wheel at the time of the accident.
Both were experienced. Paul van de Velde, 52, had worked with the family-owned Top Tours company for seven years while Geert Michiels, 35, was an experienced public bus driver in his second season with the firm.
The names of the 22 children had not been released officially last night but it is known that they
Relatives of the victims of a bus crash in Sierre stand outside their hotel in Uvrier, Switzerland, after flying to the site of the crash that killed came from two schools – Stetske junior school in Lommel and St Lambertus in Leuven.
Photographs of 15 children, all aged 11 and 12, and two teachers from Stetske were put up in Lommel city hall.
The images conveyed the bright, innocent faces that had set off on a trip abroad only to have their lives brutally cut short.
Mourners filed into the hall to sign a condolences register and write messages to the departed. After dark, thousands attended a vigil outside the Catholic church next to the school.
Local reports backed up by friends and colleagues have named the adults who died as Frank van Kerckhove, 40, a teacher at St Lambertus, Monique van Bocxlaer, 70, a teaching assistant at the school, Raymond Theunis, 54, and Veerie van Heukelom from Stekske school as well as the two drivers.
The grandfather of a 12-year-old boy on the coach confirmed that he had died. Jos Daman, from Leuven, told the Flemish paper Het Laatste Nieuws that his grandson Bavo Daman, from St Lambertus school, had suffered fatal injuries in the crash.
He said the boy’s parents had flown to the crash scene on Wednesday where they were given the news.
‘‘We are still waiting for more news but this is obviously totally devastating for all of us,’’ he said.
Bavo had been sitting on the back seat of the coach with his best friend, 12-year-old Timon Waeterloos, who survived the accident but suffered two broken legs.
Timon’s parents, Joost and Gitte Waeterloos, said they were agonising how to tell their son that his friend was dead.
‘‘I cannot tell you how happy we were to hear his voice when we spoke to Timon on the phone.’’
Twenty-four children were injured in the accident.
Last night three – a girl and two boys – remained critically ill in comas in University Hospital, Lausanne.
Medics said more than 50 operations were performed by 150 medical staff on 16 of the injured children.
Eight were expected to be discharged from hospital by the weekend.
Police said of the 28 dead, 19 had been formally identified by their parents and the remaining nine were ‘‘in progress’’.
The head of the coach company Top Tours, Tom Cooremans, said the vehicle had been fully inspected in October, 2011.
Mr Cooremans, who rejected the DVD theory, said he drove the leading coach of three on the trip and was not fully aware of the extent of the tragedy until he returned to Belgium.
‘‘This is just devastating. We feel we have lost members of our family and there are so many questions.
Relatives were driven from a hotel in the Swiss town of Sion to the nearby morgue, where the bodies of some of the children were being kept.
Many of the bodies are due to be returned to Belgium today, when the country will hold a day of national mourning.