Investigation under way after 38 people killed in Italian bus crash

What could seem less foreboding than to pack off 10-year-old Arianna with her “nonna” (grandmother) for a three-day pilgrimage that would take in the birthplace of St Padre Pio?

For years now, the parish of San Luca di Arco Felice in Pozzuoli, just outside Naples, has organised this old-fashioned summer outing. This time, however, it was to end tragically.

As the pilgrims approached Naples on their way home on Sunday night, their bus went out of control.

Just why the bus failed to slow down at a traffic jam remains unclear. Instead, it piled into 15 cars on the Napoli-Bari autostrada before crashing through the guard rail and plummeting off the motorway flyover, crashing 100ft into a ravine below.

Thirty-eight people died as the violent impact of the crash burst the bus apart.

Wreckage
After she had been pulled out of the mangled wreckage, Arianna was able to remember her mother's mobile phone number.

When the rescue workers phoned her home, she immediately told her mother she was “fine”, adding: “I am fine, mammy, but I can’t find grandma.”

This morning, a number of families in Pozzuoli who have lost a loved one will come together in a small sports complex in the town.

Yesterday, the families made their way to the little village of Monteforte Irpino, the closest town to the scene of the crash.

At first glance, Monteforte Irpino is a beautiful place surrounded by wooded hills. Rather than looking like the dry, unkempt south, it might pass for Switzerland.

That is until you notice that the grass in front of the Istituto Comprensivo S Aurigemma, where the 38 coffins were laid out, has not been cut for a long time.

When you look around at the buildings, too, they seem a long way from Renzo Piano’s best.

This is a poor, tough, small community but one which yesterday had no difficulty expressing solidarity with the families from nearby Naples who had come to collect their dead.

As each coffin was carried out of the schoolhouse, it was greeted with discreet applause.

Each one was announced by a policewoman in a roll call along the lines of “Rossi, Giovanni”.

At the back of the schoolhouse, as the coffins were still being carried out, Italian minister for transport Maurizio Lupi was giving a press conference.

State of bus
When asked about the age and state of the crashed bus, he had to admit that, although it bore a 2008 registration number, it had in fact been built in 1995.

It is by no means impossible to have the “reregistration” of a car or bus “facilitated”. You just need to know the right guy.

In this case, however, the “reregistration” may have cost 38 lives.

As things stand, there appears to be two possible explanations for this tragedy: either human error on the part of the driver, who died in the crash; or, more likely, serious mechanical problems with the bus that resulted in brake failure.

Out of control
Rescue workers and eye witnesses reported yesterday not only that the bus had appeared wildly out of control but also that bits of engine and bodywork had been found almost 1km up the road.

The public prosecutor’s office in nearby Avellino has opened an investigation into “multiple manslaughter and massacre”.

Downhill flyover
That investigation will also look closely at the autostrada itself, which locals yesterday described as dangerous because of the manner in which the fast downhill flyover winds into a tight bend.

In the meantime, Italy yet again finds itself having to call a national day of mourning.