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Accident on the Rampe de Laffrey (2007)
Encyclopedia
The accident on the Rampe de Laffrey on July 22, 2007, was one of the most serious accidents to occur along a stretch of road
widely considered among the worst in France. 26 Polish
pilgrim
s were killed when their bus
flew off the road and into a ravine
near the town of Vizille
. 24 people were injured, 9 gravely, in the crash.
, Świnoujście
, Warszawa and Stargard Szczeciński
, had left Poland on July 10 for the start of a tour of Marian sanctuaries in southern Europe. It had made stops at Our Lady of Fatima
in Portugal and at Our Lady of Lourdes
, and finished at the sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette
. At the time of the crash it was on its return trip to Poland; 47 pilgrims, a chaperone, and two drivers, all Polish, were on board.
At approximately 9:30 in the morning of July 22, the bus apparently lost the use of its brake
s at the base of the hill, in a location known to be dangerous to drivers. It missed the final curve of the descent and overturned into a ravine near the Romanche
, where it immediately burst into flames. The accident occurred at almost the same spot at which a Belgian bus
suffered the same fate in 1973, killing 43.
François Fillon
and Jean-Louis Borloo
, then the Minister of Ecology and in charge of transport, immediately went to the scene of the accident. Polish president Lech Kaczyński
quickly came to Grenoble
, where he was met by French president Nicolas Sarkozy
; together, the two men visited the bedsides of several victims who had been transported to various local hospitals.
immediately established that the bus should never have been driving along the Rampe in the first place, as use of the road is severely restricted, and forbidden to heavy vehicles without local authorization. This rule was rarely relaxed, and even then only for specially-equipped vehicles on local transport routes. Nevertheless, eyewitness testimony from survivors indicated that the driver, who, at 22, was the younger of the two assigned to the tour and had had his driver's license
for only 10 months, had voluntarily chosen to ignore the itinerary. He had chosen instead to follow a shorter route indicated on his GPS, in the process passing no fewer than 14 signs indicating that passage on the road was forbidden to heavy vehicles. Both the other driver and the chaperone were severely injured, but survived the crash.
The bus involved in the accident was a Scania
that had been placed into circulation in July 2000. According to the Polish operator of the tour, it had passed a technical inspection in Germany three weeks prior to the accident without question. It is not known if the bus was equipped with a speed-reduction system; similar recently-built vehicles have been designed with a backup system, either electromagnetic or hydraulic, in addition to the usual brakes.
Motorists who were following the bus during its descent indicated that the brake lights appeared to be working normally. Other drivers, however, indicated that they had seen sparks
coming from the undercarriage
, suggesting that the brakes may have indeed failed. In addition, a survivor said in her testimony that the driver had warned passengers during the descent, crying out that the brakes had gone; she also said that just before this she had heard something crack under the bus.
At a press conference on July 25, Prime Minister Fillon announced that certain restrictions along the roadway would immediately be designed to be put into place. Flashing signs were to be installed, as were speed bump
s as high as the former signs at the location. At the end of September special gantries
were also to have been placed, preventing the entry of vehicles over a certain height. A barrier was also planned, containing a magnetic card designed to recognize only certain service vehicles that are authorized to use the road. However, as of January, 2008, no gantries had been placed at the site, and only a few of the signs were ready for use. Furthermore, there is a good deal of evidence to indicate that unauthorized vehicles still use the road.
The gantries have been inaugurated in July 2008
On October 8, 2007, President Kaczynski presented a special decoration to 32 people who had participated in rescue efforts after the accident. The ceremony took place at the Polish embassy in Paris.
Rampe de Laffrey
The Rampe de Laffrey is a section of France's Route nationale 85, today called the Route Napoléon, located in the department of Isère between the communes of Laffrey and Vizille, about fifteen kilometers southeast of Grenoble...
widely considered among the worst in France. 26 Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
pilgrim
Pilgrim
A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...
s were killed when their bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
flew off the road and into a ravine
Ravine
A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. A ravine is generally a fluvial slope landform of relatively steep sides, on the order of twenty to...
near the town of Vizille
Vizille
Vizille is a commune in the Isère department in south-eastern France.Vizille is home to the Musée de la Révolution Française de Vizille, a rich depository of archival and rare materials devoted to the French Revolution, housed since 1984 in the Château de Vizille, a Monument Historique. The library...
. 24 people were injured, 9 gravely, in the crash.
History of the trip
The bus, loaded with pilgrims from SzczecinSzczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....
, Świnoujście
Swinoujscie
Świnoujście is a city and seaport on the Baltic Sea and Szczecin Lagoon, located in the extreme north-west of Poland. It is situated mainly on the islands of Uznam and Wolin, but also occupies smaller islands, of which the largest is Karsibór island, once part of Usedom, now separated by a Piast...
, Warszawa and Stargard Szczeciński
Stargard Szczecinski
Stargard Szczeciński is a city in northwestern Poland, with a population of 71,017 . Situated on the Ina River it is the capital of Stargard County and since 1999 has been in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship; prior to that it was in the Szczecin Voivodeship...
, had left Poland on July 10 for the start of a tour of Marian sanctuaries in southern Europe. It had made stops at Our Lady of Fatima
Our Lady of Fatima
Our Lady of Fátima is a famous title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary as she appeared in apparitions reported by three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal. These occurred on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13...
in Portugal and at Our Lady of Lourdes
Our Lady of Lourdes
Our Lady of Lourdes is the name used to refer to the Marian apparition said to have appeared before various individuals on separate occasions around Lourdes, France...
, and finished at the sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette
Our Lady of La Salette
La Salette is a small mountaintop village near Grenoble, France. It is most noted for an apparition of the Virgin Mary that was reported in 1846 by two shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, followed by numerous accounts of miraculous healings....
. At the time of the crash it was on its return trip to Poland; 47 pilgrims, a chaperone, and two drivers, all Polish, were on board.
Accident
Brake
A brake is a mechanical device which inhibits motion. Its opposite component is a clutch. The rest of this article is dedicated to various types of vehicular brakes....
s at the base of the hill, in a location known to be dangerous to drivers. It missed the final curve of the descent and overturned into a ravine near the Romanche
Romanche
The Romanche is a 78 km long mountain river in southeastern France, right tributary of the Drac . Its source is in the northern part of the Massif des Écrins, Dauphiné Alps. It flows into the Drac in Champ-sur-Drac, south of Grenoble. The road from Grenoble to Briançon over the Col du Lautaret runs...
, where it immediately burst into flames. The accident occurred at almost the same spot at which a Belgian bus
Accident on the Rampe de Laffrey (1973)
The accident on the Rampe de Laffrey on July 18, 1973 remains, , the worst to ever have occurred along that stretch of roadway, among the worst in France...
suffered the same fate in 1973, killing 43.
Reaction
The accident provoked an outpouring of public support both in France and in Poland. French Prime MinisterPrime Minister of France
The Prime Minister of France in the Fifth Republic is the head of government and of the Council of Ministers of France. The head of state is the President of the French Republic...
François Fillon
François Fillon
François Charles Armand Fillon is the Prime Minister of France. He was appointed to that office by President Nicolas Sarkozy on 17 May 2007. He served initially until 13 November 2010 when he resigned from being prime minister before a planned cabinet reshuffle.On 14 November 2010, Sarkozy...
and Jean-Louis Borloo
Jean-Louis Borloo
Jean-Louis Borloo is a French politician, and was the French Minister for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning between 2007 and 2010.-Professional résumé:Education...
, then the Minister of Ecology and in charge of transport, immediately went to the scene of the accident. Polish president Lech Kaczyński
Lech Kaczynski
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński was Polish lawyer and politician who served as the President of Poland from 2005 until 2010 and as Mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 22 December 2005. Before he became a president, he was also a member of the party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość...
quickly came to Grenoble
Grenoble
Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...
, where he was met by French president Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
; together, the two men visited the bedsides of several victims who had been transported to various local hospitals.
Inquiry
An inquiryInquiry
An inquiry is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ways that each type of inquiry achieves its aim.-Deduction:...
immediately established that the bus should never have been driving along the Rampe in the first place, as use of the road is severely restricted, and forbidden to heavy vehicles without local authorization. This rule was rarely relaxed, and even then only for specially-equipped vehicles on local transport routes. Nevertheless, eyewitness testimony from survivors indicated that the driver, who, at 22, was the younger of the two assigned to the tour and had had his driver's license
Driver's license
A driver's license/licence , or driving licence is an official document which states that a person may operate a motorized vehicle, such as a motorcycle, car, truck or a bus, on a public roadway. Most U.S...
for only 10 months, had voluntarily chosen to ignore the itinerary. He had chosen instead to follow a shorter route indicated on his GPS, in the process passing no fewer than 14 signs indicating that passage on the road was forbidden to heavy vehicles. Both the other driver and the chaperone were severely injured, but survived the crash.
The bus involved in the accident was a Scania
Scania
Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...
that had been placed into circulation in July 2000. According to the Polish operator of the tour, it had passed a technical inspection in Germany three weeks prior to the accident without question. It is not known if the bus was equipped with a speed-reduction system; similar recently-built vehicles have been designed with a backup system, either electromagnetic or hydraulic, in addition to the usual brakes.
Motorists who were following the bus during its descent indicated that the brake lights appeared to be working normally. Other drivers, however, indicated that they had seen sparks
Ember
Embers are the glowing, hot coals made of greatly heated wood, coal, or other carbon-based material that remain after, or sometimes precede a fire. Embers can glow very hot, sometimes as hot as the fire which created them...
coming from the undercarriage
Undercarriage
The undercarriage or landing gear in aviation, is the structure that supports an aircraft on the ground and allows it to taxi, takeoff and land...
, suggesting that the brakes may have indeed failed. In addition, a survivor said in her testimony that the driver had warned passengers during the descent, crying out that the brakes had gone; she also said that just before this she had heard something crack under the bus.
Aftermath
Speed bump
A speed bump is a speed-reducing feature of road design to slow traffic or reduce through traffic, via...
s as high as the former signs at the location. At the end of September special gantries
Gantry (road sign)
A gantry is a traffic sign assembly in which signs are mounted on an overhead support, or railway signals supported....
were also to have been placed, preventing the entry of vehicles over a certain height. A barrier was also planned, containing a magnetic card designed to recognize only certain service vehicles that are authorized to use the road. However, as of January, 2008, no gantries had been placed at the site, and only a few of the signs were ready for use. Furthermore, there is a good deal of evidence to indicate that unauthorized vehicles still use the road.
The gantries have been inaugurated in July 2008
On October 8, 2007, President Kaczynski presented a special decoration to 32 people who had participated in rescue efforts after the accident. The ceremony took place at the Polish embassy in Paris.
See also
- List of Poland disasters by death toll