Konginkangas bus disaster
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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 Ruka skiing center for an alpine skiing vacation crashed into a tractor trailer carrying heavy paper rolls weighing about 38 tonnes total. The accident occurred on highway 4 E75 20 km north of Äänekoski, and left the bus driver and 23 passengers dead; 15 were injured. The executive director of the youth travel company also died in the accident. Most of the victims were sleeping at the time and were immediately killed by the rolls of paper 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 front of the bus, as well as several seat rows, were demolished on impact.
[edit] External links
- Suspended sentence for truck driver in Konginkangas disaster (English)
- Accident investigation (Finnish)
- Animation
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