After the serious bus accident on Autobahn 9 near Leipzig, the public prosecutor’s office is investigating 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.
The double-decker Flixbus with 54 people on board, including the two drivers, left the road on Wednesday morning, raced across the grass verge and tipped over on its side. The bus company had previously spoken of 55 people on the bus. The police reported 4 deaths, 6 seriously injured and 29 people with minor injuries.
In any case, investigators are currently focusing on investigating the causes. 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 identities of the four fatalities had not yet been clarified by midday on Thursday. “We are trying and hope to be able to provide information about this in the afternoon,” said the police spokeswoman. There was also no information about the age and gender of the victims.
The coach had an accident on the way from Berlin to Zurich. It started at 8 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.
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, she had pulled injured people out of the rubble and treated them without professional equipment.
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.
“Nevertheless, 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 referred to the requirement to wear seat belts in coaches 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.
