Panic on the part of the driver, according to the management of the AP State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), caused the ghastly accident on Budameru Bridge on Friday.
Reconstructing the circumstances that led to the instant death of three persons and injuries to seven others, Executive Director (Engineering and IT) of the Road Transport Corporation A. Koteswara Rao said the driver B. Nageswara Rao panicked when he noticed sudden loss of air from the rear brake pipe and failed to manoeuvre the wheel resulting in the killings.
“Had he used presence of mind and applied either air brake or hand brake to control the speed of the vehicle, the possibility of the accident could have been averted,” he said in an official statement.
Stating that no complaint about any mechanical defects, especially brake problem, was observed by drivers operating the bus on the same route, he said the bus was inducted in the RTC fleet in 2010 and had covered a distance of 7.14 lakh kms so far.
“The condition of the bus is good and no major problems were reported by the drivers operating it in the last one month barring an ‘air down’ problem reported on Thursday through the log sheet but the problem was addressed by the maintenance staff on the same night. While taking the bus for service, the driver did not observe any brake problem on Friday morning,” he said.
Elaborating the situation, he said when the vehicle was moving on the Singhnagar flyover and was approaching Budameru bridge, the driver got panicky when he observed loss of air from the brake pipe and drove into the traffic moving ahead.
He said the buses come with dual brake system. Besides, there is also a vacuum brake system that can be operated by hand brake valve to stop the vehicle in case of emergency, he said.
Unions contest it
But sources among RTC Employees Union have contested the management theory. They alleged that the duty drivers had been complaining of ‘air down’ in the brake system for last three days but the problem was not attended to properly.
They said the complaint was entered in the record book but no action was taken. They said as part of austerity measures, no spare parts were available with the engineering wing which carried out only ‘temporary’ repairs.
Staff crunch
Citing shortage of mechanics, they said the posts were outsourced to unskilled persons compounding the problem. They said following failure of the brakes, the driver tried his best to avoid a mishap by brushing the vehicle along the wall of the bridge hoping that it would reduce the speed but it did not happen.
