Country Poland Bus operator PKS Gdańsk Type of incident Collision with tree Location Gdańsk, Poland Injuries 43 | Bus route or line Zawory-Kartuzy-Gdańsk Bus owner PKS Date 2 May 1994 Total number of deaths 32 Passenger count 75 | |
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Cause Burst tire (overcrowding) | ||
Poland's bus disaster of 1994 was a bus crash near Gdańsk involving a commuter bus PKS (Polska Komunikacja Samochodowa) that veered into a road-side tree. In the accident, 32 people died and 45 were injured.
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Accident
The accident occurred on the afternoon of Monday, 2 May 1994. After a twenty-minute scheduled stop at a depot in Zawory, the bus - an Autosan H9-21 - began its return to Gdańsk with just two passengers. However, at the next scheduled stop in Chmielenek, several more people boarded the bus. Further along the route, large crowds of travelers boarded the vehicle at stops in Chmielno and in Kartuzy. At Żukowo, the driver acquiesced to the request of some travelers to make a stop. Finally, when the bus stopped in Leźno, an additional eight people boarded. By this time, the overcrowded vehicle was carrying 74 passengers, far in excess of the maximum allowable capacity of 51 (39 sitting, 12 standing).
32 kilometers after the start of its journey and 500 meters before its next scheduled stop in Gdańsk-Kokoszki, the overloaded bus veered off the road and crashed into a tree while attempting to pass a Jelcz truck. The force of the impact drove the tree 4,2 meters into the body of the bus. In the collision, 25 passengers died immediately, with five passengers dying shortly after while being transported to local hospitals (two of them before reached hospitals.) Two additional victims died five and six days after crash, respectively, while the driver, Jerzy Marczyński, survived.
Cause of accident
The court case was closed in 1999, after a one and a half year inquiry into the accident.
The immediate cause of the accident was found to be the explosion of the right front tire, with contributing causes given as:
The tree which the bus struck was cut down in February 2008.