Foundation to raise funds for more investigation into bus crash

Parents of some of the children who died in the school bus crash in Switzerland three years ago this month have created a foundation to raise money for further investigations into the accident. The parents are not satisfied with the enquiry by Swiss authorities.

“With the Stichting Busramp Sierre, we want to collect the funds needed for further independent research into the true facts behind the disaster,” said Paul Schilders of Lommel, whose son Luc, 11, died in the crash. “We will do our utmost to clarify the real causes [of the accident]. We want to ensure such a disaster never happens again, and we want action to be taken if it should turn out that there are failures in the certification of people involved in passenger transport.”

Children from two schools – in Lommel, Limburg, and in Heverlee, a district of Leuven – were returning home from a skiing holiday in March 2012 when their coach crashed in a tunnel in Sierre, in the Valais canton of Switzerland. The accident was the worst in Belgian history: 22 children aged 11 and 12 were killed, together with four members of school staff and two coach drivers.

The Swiss prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Olivier Elsig, concluded that the accident had been caused by a momentary lapse of attention by the younger of the two drivers, who was behind the wheel at the time. No blame could be attached for causing the accident, he said.

Some of the parents of the victims have never been satisfied with that result, believing that the driver was taking medication for depression and may have driven the bus into the tunnel wall deliberately. Their suspicions led to them insisting on the removal of the names of both drivers from a monument in Switzerland to the victims.

The Swiss have closed the case, and the new foundation website speaks of “a number of crucial aspects such as the bizarre trajectory of the bus in the last metres and the use of anti-depressives by the driver, were not or were barely investigated by the Swiss authorities”.

Meanwhile in Switzerland, a memorial service is due to take place this Friday, the third anniversary of the crash. A remembrance ceremony will also be held in primary school ’t Stekske in Lommel, and next week in the Sint-Lambertus school in Heverlee.

photo: A boy stands near the coffins of two of the victims of the bus crash in Sierre during a ceremony at Sint-Pieters church in Leuven on 22 March, 2012

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