Minibus crash firm launches inquiry

The holiday company used by eight Britons killed in a minibus crash in South Africa said yesterday it had arranged the trip in the belief that the driver was properly licensed.

Exodus Travels said the company was now carrying out its own internal inquiry into the accident on New Year's Eve. The tourist bus was carrying 13 people when it overturned after swerving to avoid a man who was apparently trying to commit suicide.

South African officials have concluded that minibus driver, Christopher Kampfert, 24, was not authorised to operate a vehicle as heavy as the Mercedes Sprinter. An investigation also found that the trailer towed by the bus did not have a proper braking system and had an expired licence disc.

Powell Ettinger, a director of London-based Exodus Travels, said yesterday that the company was co-operating fully with the local police and was focusing on looking after the survivors and relatives of the dead and injured, who are expected to fly out to South Africa this week. "To the best of our knowledge at the time, we believed that the people did have the correct licences, and we are running an investigation into whether they did or not," he said.

Investigators from the transport department in the northern KwaZulu-Natal province accepted that the crash was triggered by the man running in front of the minibus, forcing it to swerve. But Logan Maistry, a Transport Department spokesman, said the impact and severity of the crash would probably have been reduced if the driver had ensured everything was working properly.

"It's like having a licence to drive a car, but driving a bus," Mr Maistry said.

The transport investigators found that speed may also have been a contributory factor. The results of their inquiry will be sent to the British High Commissioner in South Africa, and justice officials, for possible prosecution.

The holidaymakers were on their way to the Royal Natal National Park when the accident happened. Eyewitnesses said the suicidal pedestrian, Pelepele Miya, had been intent on killing himself and had walked in front of other cars earlier in the day. He died in the crash.

Six of the Britons died at the scene and another two died later in hospital. Four other people travelling in the bus suffered minor injuries including the driver, Mr Kampfert, 58-year-old Briton Andrew Robertson, a local tour guide and a Canadian.

Two injured Britons have now been released from hospital as well as Mr Kampfert. One of the injured, Sonia Willhoft, 61, from Surbiton, Surrey, lost her husband, Anthony Egan, a retired nuclear physicist, in the accident.

Two of the dead Britons had planned to marry and were on a safari break they had planned as "the holiday of a lifetime". The families of Neil Pike, 35, and 30-year-old Christine Rowe, from Preston, Lancashire, paid tribute to the couple who "adored each other". They said: "Our over-riding memory of them will be one of a young, energetic and fun-loving couple who were about to marry and who had their lives together in front of them."

The other victims have been identified as retired postman Thomas Harris, 65, from Rhondda, South Wales; former eye surgeon Roger Pearce, 60, and his wife, Linda, 49, of Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire; and another married couple, Stephen and Marion Moon, of Maidstone, Kent.

South Africa's worst tour bus crash was in September 1999 when 26 Britons and their guide were killed when their bus skidded down a mountain side. The driver was jailed for six years.