2023 Venice bus crash

The accident site (bridge on the left)

The incident happened at 19:38 CEST[3] as the bus was transporting tourists from Piazzale Roma in the historic centre of Venice to a campsite in the Marghera district.[4][5] The bus scraped the guardrail and hit it 27 times[6] along the downhill section of a flyover of a road leading from Mestre to Marghera and the A57 motorway for 50 metres (160 ft) before breaking through the barrier[7] at 6 kilometres per hour (3.7 mph).[6] The bus fell about 15 metres (49 ft), and landed upside-down with its front completely crushed[7] near the tracks of the Venezia Mestre railway station, where it caught fire.[8][9] The vehicle, a Yutong E12 model[10] which was operated by La Linea spa (part of Ferrovie Nord Milano group) and rented by a local company to transport the passengers, weighed 13 tonnes and was less than a year old. The vehicle was also electrically powered, and the fire brigade commander in charge of the scene stated that the bus' batteries had caught fire.[11]

Venice's transport councillor later confirmed that the flyover of the accident location had been in need of renovations since 2016, but repairs that were projected to cost €7 million did not begin until September 2023 due to contractor unavailability. While the work was eventually completed, the repairs fell 400 metres (1,300 ft) short of a preexisting 1.5-metre (4.9 ft) gap in the primary guardrail that the bus had penetrated, along with a secondary metal fence on the edge of the flyover.[12]

Of the 36 people on board the bus, at least 21 passengers were killed, while 15 others were injured,[11] nine of them seriously.[5] Authorities said three children were among the dead.[9][8] Among the dead were nine Ukrainian citizens, a family of four Romanians, three Germans, two Portuguese, a pregnant Croatian, one South African, and the 40-year old Italian driver,[7][13][11][14] who was reported to have had up to seven years of experience as a bus driver.[15] The injured included four Ukrainians, two Spanish, one Croatian, one French, and one Austrian, as well as four minors.[7][11][16][17]

Nationality	Deaths	Injuries
Ukraine	9	6
Romania	4	-
Germany	3	2
Portugal	2	-
Croatia	1	1
Italy	1	-
South Africa	1	-
Spain	-	2
Austria	-	1
United Arab Emirates	-	1
France	-	1
Russia	-	1
Totals	21	15

Passers-by and residents of a nearby apartment building were the first to attend to the scene, pulling out victims and survivors and attempting to extinguish the fire.[18] More than 20 ambulances and the air ambulance service of Treviso were deployed to the scene, with the injured being taken to hospitals in Mestre, Mirano, Padua, and Treviso. Rescue operations lasted for about two hours after the accident.[15] Rail services on the line near the site of the accident were temporarily suspended.[19] The wreckage of the bus was removed early the next day.[11]

A reception point was set up at a nearby hospital to provide psychological and psychiatric support for the victims' families.[11]

The public prosecutor of Venice opened an investigation into the accident on 4 October,[20] with its coverage to include the state of the flyover's guardrail, an autopsy of the driver, and a search of his phone records.[7]

Venice's mayor Luigi Brugnaro described the event as "apocalyptic".[4] A state of official mourning was declared in the city.[9] President of Veneto Luca Zaia announced that flags on official buildings across the region would be set at half-mast in remembrance of the disaster. Francesco Moraglia, the patriarch of Venice, went to the scene of the accident and blessed the dead.[14]

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, President Sergio Mattarella, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, European Council president Charles Michel, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and the King of the United Kingdom Charles III expressed their condolences and solidarity with the victims of the accident,[14][11][15] while the Italian Senate held a moment of silence for the victims of the crash on 4 October.[20]

A previous incident involving the same operator and bus model, a Yutong E12, occurred on 16 June 2023, and according to the driver's statement was the result of unresponsive brakes. No casualties were reported.[21]

On 14 October, the same model bus from the same operator crashed into a building pylon in Mestre, just a few hundred meters away from the 3 October incident. 15 people were injured, and as a result the municipality of Venice-Mestre suspended La Linea's servicing of routes on which it used electric vehicles.[22]

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