A scorched patch of ground where a bus carrying seniors ended up after colliding with a transport truck on Thursday is seen on the edge of the Trans-Canada Highway near Carberry, Man., on June 16.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Dashcam footage seized by the Manitoba RCMP show a transport truck that collided with a minibus full of seniors had the right-of-way, providing new details in the investigation of a fiery collision that killed 15 and left six others in critical condition.
The video from the semi-truck shows the bus pulled in front of it at an intersection on the Trans-Canada Highway near Carberry, 170 kilometres west of Winnipeg, just before noon on Thursday. RCMP Superintendent Rob Lasson, during a news conference on Friday, said police are not assigning blame at this time.
He said investigators are looking into possible mechanical issues with the truck and whether it recorded its speed and co-ordinates. They have spoken with the truck driver but not the bus driver, who is still being treated in hospital.
Aerial footage of the site shows braking marks leading to the skeleton of a completely burned bus, which was carrying residents of a nearby seniors centre in Dauphin to a casino. Four of the 10 victims sent to hospital are dealing with head injuries and broken bones while the remainder are fighting for their lives.
Supt. Lasson said passengers on the bus were between the ages of 58 and 88. Nineteen were women and six were men.
Victims of the crash have yet to be identified, leaving loved ones in the lurch while investigators try to put together the pieces that led to the tragic incident. RCMP said they are working with the medical examiner’s officer to confirm identities and get in contact with their families, adding on Friday that the process is expected to take time because of significant facial injuries.
“For the last few hours, RCMP members have been having very difficult conversations with family members, unfortunately notifying them that their loved one is among the 15 believed to be deceased,” Supt. Lasson said.
“These are answers, but obviously not the kind of answers people were looking for.”
It’s a grim feeling known by those in Saskatchewan who lost someone in the Humboldt Broncos crash in April, 2018, that left 16 people dead. In that case, the driver of a semi-truck went through a stop sign before crashing into a bus packed with players and staff of the junior hockey team. During that tragedy, officials mistakenly identified one player as dead.
Criminal charges are a possibility in the Manitoba investigation led by Major Crime Services. The semi-trailer had been heading east on Highway 1 and the bus was heading south on Highway 5, a rural roadway that leads to the double-lane thoroughfare. Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan said his department is also investigating the crash.
The bus had 25 people on the trip from the Dauphin Active Living Centre to the Sand Hills Casino in Carberry.
Sandra Kaleta, who is involved with the seniors centre, said she had considered going on the bus Thursday.
“I don’t know why I changed my mind,” Ms. Kaleta said. “I just did.”
She said she knew some of the people on the bus and played Scrabble every Tuesday with one of them.
“I have no idea how she is,” Ms. Kaleta said. “I think that’s the hardest part. I can’t imagine what some of these families are going through.”
Investigators who examined the Humboldt crash are assisting the Manitoba RCMP. A government-ordered review of the Saskatchewan intersection led to safety recommendations, which included adding rumble strips, oversized stop signs and pavement markings, in addition to removing a stand of trees that obstructed visibility.
In Manitoba, the crash occurred in the sprawling Prairies where a sprinkling of trees and power lines are nearby but do not affect visibility at the intersection, Google Maps shows. Drivers heading across the highway would first have to obey an oversized stop sign followed by a yield sign in the median, which separates opposite lanes. Skies were clear at the time.
Kim Calfas, a retired police officer and collision reconstructionist in Regina, said an investigation into this type of incident will be a massive, complex undertaking and could take months to complete. He said the similarities between the two multifatality crashes end “when you get to the scene and have to start putting things back together again.”
What comes next is the collection of eyewitness testimonies and victim statements, in addition to an examination of all the factors and circumstances that led to the crash. Mr. Calfas said investigators will determine the weight and speed of the vehicles, measure the highway configuration and consider the possibility of human error. The evidence will then be interpreted.
He said vehicles, depending on their weight, are like billiard balls. “There’s a thing called conservation of momentum and energy in has to equal energy out. So, if you think of a couple of pool table balls, they run into each other at different angles and then they come away, one a lot further than the other depending on which one was carrying the most energy.”
Kris Fulgham, a transportation safety consultant with CayCan in Alberta, said that the biggest issue with Prairies highway crossings, such as the one in Manitoba, is the potential for what he called “normalization of deviation.” This is when drivers lose focus or forget basic safety procedures on routes they’ve travelled frequently, where there might be little traffic and stimuli.
“If you forget to do it one time, that can cascade into not doing it the next time and the next time until something happens,” said Mr. Kulgham, adding that driver fatigue could compound the issue with driving on the road up to 13 consecutive hours.
The accident involved a Day & Ross truck and a Quality Care Transit bus. In a statement, Day & Ross CEO William Doherty said his team was “heartbroken by the tragic news.” He said they will fully co-operate with the investigation but could not comment further. Quality Care Transit extended their sympathies on social media to the victims’ families and to the community as it works through “this heart-wrenching situation.”
Neither company answered questions about the drivers’ schedules.
With a report from The Canadian Press