- Author
-
National Transportation Safety Board
- Title
- Highway Accident Report: Schoolbus/Automobile Collision and Fire, Near Reston, Virginia, February 29, 1972.
- Coporate
- National Transportation Safety Board, Washington, DC
- Report
-
NTSB-HAR-72-2
April 12, 1972
33 p.
- Keywords
-
accidents
|
buses
|
automobiles accidents
|
fuel tanks
|
standards
|
occupants
- Identifiers
- schoolbus fuel tank location; schoolbus service door; schoolbus driver seatbelts
- Abstract
- At 8:15 a.m., February 29, 1972, a 1961 sedan ran a stop sign at Lawyers Road and Soapstone Drive, in Fairfax County, near Reston, Virginia, collided with a Fairfax County Schoolbus with four children aboard. The impact ruptured the schoolbus fuel tank and knocked it from the bus, and disabled the schoolbus service door. The sedan drives was ejected and seriously burned in the gasoline fire which ensued. The schoolbus ran off the roadway and partially overturned,injuring all occupants, but did not catch fire. The highway, environmental factors, and vehicle condition were not factors in this accident. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this collision was the failure of the sedan to yield right-of-way at a stop sign. Fire was caused by undertermined source of ignition of gasoline spilled from the ruptured and detached schoolbus fuel tank, contributed to by the vulnerable location of the fuel tank and the absence of crash-protection design features.