Puisseguin bus accident

The Puisseguin bus accident occurred on October 23, 2015 at around 7:30 a.m. in the southwestern French municipality of Puisseguin in the Gironde department . 43 people died and eight bus passengers survived. It was the worst bus accident in France since the 1982 Beaune bus accident , which left 53 people dead. The bus collided head-on with a timber truck that was standing across. Both vehicles caught fire. The majority of the bus occupants were unable to get out of the vehicle even though the bus driver opened the doors shortly before the collision. Two drivers who drove behind the bus tried to break the window panes to allow the occupants to escape.

Victim

The victims were 41 bus occupants and the driver of the timber truck and his three-year-old son. Most of the fatalities among bus passengers were retirees from the nearby community of Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps , who were on a trip to the Pyrenees . Among them is the former mayor of the municipality, Michel Rogerie.

In response to the accident, France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared national mourning.

Investigation and investigation report

One surviving passenger described the rapid spread of the fire as "like lightning". The public prosecutor of Libourne said in a press conference three days after the accident that a metal rod had pierced a pressurized diesel auxiliary tank (see common rail injection ) of the timber truck due to the force of the impact . The emerging aerosol then ignited.

On August 8, 2017, the newspaper Le Parisien published the main results of a report by the investigative authority Bureau d'Enquêtes sur les Accidents de Transport Terrestre (BEA-TT) and the recommendations made by the authority in this report.

After that, the truck's additional fuel tank played an essential role. Neither the tank itself nor its installation behind the cab had been officially approved. In the collision of the two vehicles, both the additional tank of the timber truck and the front left fuel tank of the coach were compressed and torn open. The heat source that led to the ignition of the several hundred liters of the diesel oil released in this way could not be precisely identified by the investigators, but the likely cause is the grinding of metallic or electrical components against each other or on the roadway.

According to the investigation report, the resulting fire spread quickly to the coach due to the high energy content and the amount of ignited fuel and led to the interior furnishings melting and catching fire.

In the report, the BEA-TT criticized the extensive lack of regulations on the fire behavior of materials used in the interior fittings of coaches, which lagged far behind those for aircraft, ships or trains. In particular, there are no regulations for buses that limit the toxicity of the smoke produced in a fire.

As a synthesis of its investigations, the BEA-TT made five general recommendations:

1. The regulations relating to the materials used in the interior fittings of coaches should be expanded and clarified, in particular to limit the toxicity of the gases released in the event of a fire.
2. Coaches should be equipped with an emergency exit at the rear or at least with wider doors.
3. Coaches should have smoke extraction devices and / or emergency lighting modeled on commercial aircraft.
4. The installation of additional fuel tanks on trucks should always result in an official technical inspection.

The BEA-TT also made a recommendation to bus companies to better inform their passengers about the procedures for evacuating vehicles in an emergency. The Départementrat des Département Gironde was recommended to reduce the maximum speed limit in the accident curve from 90 to 50 km / h.

Reactions and consequences

In October 2017, the French Minister of Transport, Élisabeth Borne, received representatives of the accident victims and promised to tighten the safety regulations for buses; a lawyer for the victims complained two years later that this announcement was not followed by any acts. The criminal investigation was not yet completed at this point; In February 2019, the examining magistrate from Libourne announced that it would take another one to one and a half years.

Web links

• 43 dead in a bus accident near Bordeaux ( memento from October 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), on tagesschau.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Accident de Puisseguin: le corps d'un enfant découvert dans le camion , 23 October 2015
2. ↑ More than 40 dead in a traffic accident in France. FAZ.net , accessed on October 23, 2015 . 
3. ^ En Gironde, le plus grave accident de bus depuis la tragédie de Beaune. Le Figaro, October 23, 2015, accessed October 24, 2015 (French). 
4. ↑ Clémentine Maligorne: Accident en Gironde: les gestes "héroïques" Are you chauffeur car et d'un automobiliste. Le Figaro, October 23, 2015, accessed October 24, 2015 (French). 
5. ^ Régine Lamothe: A Puisseguin hébétée, l'attente des noms qu'on "connaît tous" après le drame. Le Point, accessed October 23, 2015 (French). 
6. ^ Fabian Federl: Three year old child among the 43 dead. Der Tagesspiegel , accessed on October 23, 2015 . 
7. ↑ Puisseguin: des gestes "héroïques" du chauffeur du car pour sortir des rescapé , AFP message on midilibre.fr of October 24, 2015, accessed on October 27, 2015 (French).
8. ↑ Paule Gonzales: Puisseguin: les premières explications techniques du drame , lefigaro.fr of October 26, 2015, accessed on October 27, 2015 (French).
9. ↑ Vincent Vérier: Accident de Puisseguin: le réservoir de trop. In: leparisien.fr . August 8, 2017, accessed August 8, 2017 (French). 
10. ↑ Stéphanie Brossard: “La catastrophe de Puisseguin comme l'accident de Beaune pourraient se reproduire”. In: francebleu.fr . October 22, 2019, accessed November 16, 2019 (French). 

Coordinates: 44 ° 54 ′ 52.6 "  N , 0 ° 4 ′ 12.8"  W.