Konginkangas bus disaster

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Konginkangas bus disaster was a major traffic accident on March 19, 2004, outside the Konginkangas housing estate in Äänekoski, Finland. At 02:08 local time (00:08 UTC) a bus transporting 38 passengers, most of them youths, to the Rukatunturi skiing center for an alpine skiing vacation crashed into a tractor trailer carrying heavy paper rolls weighing about 61.5 tonnes total. The accident occurred on highway 4 (E75) 20 km north of Äänekoski, and left the bus driver and 22 passengers dead; 15 were injured. The executive director of the youth travel company was among those who perished in the accident. Most of the victims were sleeping at the time and were immediately killed by the paperrolls ejected into the bus. The tractor trailer driver was left unharmed.

[edit] Sequence of events

The accident occurred when the trailer of the southbound truck began a soft swerving movement on black ice, which intermittently covered the highway at its sloughs and troughs. The trailer first swerved to the right; to correct this, the driver counter-steered the vehicle. This led to a loss of control of both the pulling tractor truck and its trailer. The trailer continued its slide across the icy pavement and into the oncoming lane until the hinge locked at a ninety-degree angle with the pulling tractor-truck. The northbound bus had no way of escaping, as this happened at the moment of passing. Five 780-kilogram paper rolls were ejected through the side of the trailer into the bus as it hit the trailer at a speed of 70 km/h. The winter speed limit on the road was 80 km/h. The front of the bus, as well as several seat rows, were demolished on impact.