Five Killed when Bus Drives into a Pedestrian Underpass

[kellyhound]

On Monday 25th of December 2017 at approximately 3pm, five people were killed & eleven injured when a city bus ploughed into a pedestrian underpass near in western Moscow, Russia.

It's not immediately clear what has caused the accident as authorities said they were looking into several possibilities, including a technical malfunction.

Moscow police said in a statement they were looking into two possible causes of the accident - the driver losing control of the vehicle & a technical problem with the bus.

"The driver of the bus began movement & then changed his trajectory, which resulted in the bus going down into the pedestrian underpass," the statement said.

"The driver has been detained. Police employees are working with him," the statement said.

Eleven people got injured and nine remain hospitalized, their condition is serious, moderately severe, a source said.

The bus driver was detained following the incident. He said that he tried to stop the vehicle, but the brakes failed, according to the Russian Investigative Committee. The man has been named as 58-year-old Viktor Tikhonov.

Reportedly injured in the incident, Tikhonov was taken to hospital where he was questioned by police.

“There were three people on the bus & I had to wait 15 minutes to resume driving,” he told. However, another bus stopped behind Tikhonov’s and he wanted to move the vehicle to give way to it.

“When I took the handbrake off, the bus drove off. I did everything to stop it, but it wouldn’t stop. The vehicle is operated with an automatic stick, so I could do nothing,” he added.

Rejecting speculation that Tikhonov might have been intoxicated at the time of the incident, his son, Aleksey, said that his father never drank at work. “We had breakfast early in the morning. My father wasn’t stressed or tired,” Aleksey Tikhonov said.

According to the driver’s supervisor, he might have fallen asleep & pushed the gas pedal accidentally.

The supervisor also told that the driver had started his shift at 1:30pm on Monday, about two hours before the crash. He also said that the driver had worked normal shifts of 11 hours for the past two days. The director of the bus company is at the scene of the accident, he added.

The Moscow Region branch of the Transport Ministry said that the bus was in working order before the beginning of the shift on Monday. No anomalies in the condition of the driver had been established either, it added.

Update: Moscow checks 9,000 bus drivers after bus accident.

Experts checked all systems & equipment affecting transportation safety: engines, transmission modules, brakes & other on-board systems.

About 9,000 bus drivers of city and private transport operators were checked in Moscow following the bus crash that killed five people, Moscow Deputy Mayor Maksim Liksutov said on Tuesday at an emergency meeting.

All buses passed the inspection. The check was unscheduled & lasted until 5 a.m. Today we are conducting transportation services on a regular basis," he said.

[HigherSpektrum]

Looks like the throttle was stuck open.

[Trunkzdbz]

That's freaking horrible, people just going home, to work, to be with there kids and loved ones and that happens, wow!!!

[RestInPepperoni]

i dreamed a dream inside my miiiiiind

[REVZZYBAN]

A poorly maintained braking system in a commercial vehicle will not hold back, (braking while at a stop), a diesel fueled vehicle at full throttle because of the torque of engine. The driver's story seems plausible, especially since an inspection was performed on the entire fleet after the accident.

[foxracing]

curb side service

[Susan]

We don't even need a breath test

[spudigitti]

That's a bad one, the music didn't help

[GiJoe7898]

[Necrotic Bowel]

In Russia, bus rides you.