Bus accident in the Sierre tunnel

The bus accident in the Sierre tunnel in the canton of Valais was a traffic accident involving a Belgian coach on March 13, 2012 in the tunnel de Sierre on the A9 in Sierre , Switzerland . 28 people were killed in the impact against a tunnel wall: 22 Belgian and Dutch children, their teachers and the two bus drivers. 24 other people were injured, three of them particularly seriously. It is the worst bus accident in Switzerland for 30 years.

The wall on which the bus crashed (after restoration with a guardrail, photo taken on March 18, 2012)

Course of events and sacrifice

The victims are mostly pupils around the age of twelve from two schools in Heverlee ( province of Flemish Brabant ) and Lommel ( province of Limburg ) who are returning to a ski camp in Saint-Luc in the Val d'Anniviers Belgium were. The bus, occupied by 52 people, drove to the Sierre-est junction (Siders Ost) on the motorway in the direction of Sion and after two kilometers at around 9.15 p.m. it came to the right-hand side, where it touched the curbs. The bus then crashed head-on into the end of an emergency stopping bay in the tunnel, which unfortunately ends in a wall at right angles to the direction of travel. Numerous people were freed from the wreck by the helpers and the injured were taken to the surrounding hospitals by helicopters and ambulances. At times over 200 emergency services were involved.

In a press conference, the examining magistrate, Olivier Elsig, stated that there were three hypotheses in the investigation of the cause: a technical problem, a driver's health problem or human error. He stressed that all the children were wearing seat belts and that the bus was in good condition. The evaluation of the tachograph showed that the prescribed rest periods and the speed limits were observed. An interaction with other road users was ruled out after viewing the surveillance images of the tunnel. An autopsy of the driver was announced. The injured are 17 Belgians, three Dutch, one Polish and one German. The Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo announced a national day of mourning for March 16 . The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also ordered mourning flags. In Switzerland, the flags were raised at half-mast in the canton of Valais and on the Federal Palace in Bern .

A monument inaugurated three years after the Sierre drama.

The memorial is a reminder of the 28 victims, including 22 children, who died in the bus accident in March 2012 in Valais.

The Auguste Piccard square in Sierre with a circle of trees above the scene of the accident in the tunnel.

Accident investigation

In mid-June 2012 , after a three-month investigation in Brussels, the chief public prosecutor of the canton of Valais , Olivier Elsig, announced that the investigators would focus on the driver of the bus and on “human error or illness”. The 34-year-old took the wheel two minutes before the accident after his 52-year-old colleague had mastered the difficult mountain route from Saint-Luc down into the valley. The speed in the tunnel, in which a speed of 100 km / h was allowed, was between 99 and 100 km / h. About 75 meters before the collision point, the bus drove onto the right curb and crashed into the emergency stop on the right-hand side at 27 meters per second (= 97.2 km / h) three seconds later without any significant change in direction or braking.

Defects in maintenance or technical defects were excluded by the investigators based on the accident record, the evaluation of the tachograph diagrams and the expertise on the vehicle involved in the accident and an identical bus, as well as the possibility of third parties and defects on the road or the tunnel. The thesis that the driver had been handling the DVD device before the accident also seemed unlikely to the investigators. According to Olivier Elsig, the driver should have got up, let go of the wheel and turned around to reach the device in a niche behind him. The 52-year-old colleague who was out of service was also in the front of the bus at the time of the accident. Although no alcohol was found in the blood of either driver shortly after the accident, the accident driver's medical dossier is compared with toxicological analyzes that have been carried out over the past few months. Elsig hopes to be able to complete the investigations by the end of summer 2012.

On May 21, 2013, in an investigation report on the accident in the Sierre tunnel, the most likely causes of the accident were assumed to be “inattentiveness or weakness of the chauffeur”.

Work-up

The Belgian singer Milow dedicated a song to the victims with the title 22 Children in which he sings about the accident.

On March 13, 2015, three years after the accident, a memorial was inaugurated in Sierre at the Auguste Piccard square on Lac de Géronde (Gerundensee). The plant consists of two vertical pillars, each three meters high, and stands above the accident site in the tunnel of the A9 motorway.