2 dead, 69 injured as bus overturns, Driver held over dangerous driving - National Express withdrew all its double-deck coaches from service last night for safety checks after a late-night crash on an M25 slip road that killed two people and injured dozens, including several who lost limbs.
As the driver of the vehicle, who was named in reports last night as Philip Rooney, 47, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, National Express said that a team of engineers was being deployed to check all 12 coaches in its double-deck fleet.
There were claims that when the coach, a Neoplan Skyliner, flipped on to its side, the driver had been speeding to make up for a half-hour delay at Heathrow.
The same model of coach was involved in the deaths of 28 travellers in France in 2003, prompting an official warning about the risk of high-sided coaches overturning.
A passenger on the National Express service, Eddy Loney, 37, told a friend that the coach was travelling very fast. He said that the driver “lost the back end one way, then the other way, then the third time it headed towards the central reservation”.
Another passenger, Michael Milbourne, who is being treated for a fractured vertebra, said that the coach was coming on to the slip road when it “veered to the left then right and then it just lost control”.
His stepbrother, James Lant: said: “He said that after the accident he’d woken up and found a young blonde girl laid on top of him and he was afraid the man next to him might have been dead because he had a glazed look on his face.”
The London to Aberdeen National Express 592 service was less than an hour into its all-night journey when it overturned on the slip road bend from the westbound M4 to the clockwise M25 at about 11.45pm on Wednesday.
Passengers who had not fastened their seatbelts were flung around the inside of the cabin or were thrown through the shattered windows on to the muddy verge. Others, restrained by their belts, were held fast as they were dragged across the ground with glass, mangled metal and gravel ripping skin and tearing limbs off bodies.
All 69 passengers and both drivers were taken to hospital in a fleet of ambulances; 21 of those were “stretcher cases”. Nine of the passengers — including a man who is in intensive care — were Polish migrants who lived and worked in Glasgow.
Two people died. One was Christina Toner, 76, who had been visiting her daughter and grandchildren. Her husband, James, who played for Leeds United and Dundee FC in the 1950s, was badly injured. The second person who died was a man in his twenties who has not been identified formally.
A mother and her two young children, aged three and seven months, each had to have a limb amputated. Other passengers also had limbs amputated while some suffered spinal and head injuries.
Greg Grimes, 16, a student, said that his father Peter, 45, suffered broken ribs and “a hole in his shoulder”.
Peter Grimes of Fulham was travelling north to see family. His son said: “He was sitting on the window side as the coach toppled over on to the side where he was sitting.
“As the coach skidded along he managed to hold three people in and stop them falling out. He could have saved their lives.
“He says they were going too fast trying to take the bend. He knew before they actually crashed that it was going to happen.”
National Express Group said last night it had recalled all its double-deck fleet as a precautionary measure. Richard Bowker, its chief executive, said that the company took “serious precautions” against accidents.He added: “All vehicles are fitted with tachographs that electronically record the vehicles’ behaviour.”
A spokesman said the coach had a speed governor. He said: “We do not know what speed the coach was going at this stage but it cannot have been doing more than 62mph.”
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent
Published: January 5, 2007
Referenced from Times Online