Bulgarian investigators announced today that human error is the most likely cause of the bus accident that claimed the lives of more than 40 people.
The bus, which was carrying tourists, including children, from northern Macedonia, was returning from an excursion to Turkey.
In the early hours of Tuesday, it was engulfed in flames on a highway in western Bulgaria.
Investigators have ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack or that extra fuel pipes inside the vehicle could have caused the fire. They also concluded that there was no explosion.
“At the moment, the most basic and the main version is that of human error,” the head of the Bulgarian National Investigation Service, Borislav Sarafov, said in a press conference today.
“Necropsies-autopsies indicate that all the victims died mainly from suffocation after the fire and not from injuries caused by the accident or from injuries due to an explosion,” he said.
Investigators are examining whether poor road marking, poor signage and lack of safety reflectors, as well as poor traffic organization on the highway could have contributed to the accident.
“Our view is that the railing, on which the bus first collided, is not only useless, but also dangerous for traffic and in fact contributed to the accident,” Sarafov said.
The bus crashed into a guardrail on its right side, uprooting it and engulfed in the flames of friction, then turned sharply to the left before being stopped at the dividing railing of the motorway.
“Eyewitnesses have said that immediately after the first collision the fire broke out and the bus quickly filled with smoke,” said lead investigator Marian Marinov.
“No one could get out of the front door because of the strong fire there. Everyone gathered in front of the back door, but it was blocked by railings that had blocked the bus,” he added.
According to Reuters, authorities reported 45 victims of the accident, but investigators found 44 bodies. They are trying to find out if a passenger, whose name was on the passenger list, had boarded another bus that participated in the same trip or survived the accident.
A survivor who broke the back window of the bus testified that eight passengers jumped out of the burning vehicle, according to Sika Mileva, a spokeswoman for the chief prosecutor. Only seven passengers were taken to hospital.
Bulgaria is currently sending two officials to northern Macedonia to take DNA samples from relatives needed to identify the victims, Sarafov added.
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