Indonesia bus crashes as passenger grabs steering wheel

  • Published
Video grab shows crashed bus by side of the roadImage source, AFP
Image caption,

Video footage showed the badly damaged bus by the side of the road

Twelve people were killed and dozens more injured when a passenger grabbed the steering wheel of a bus in West Java, Indonesia, causing it to crash.

Witnesses said the passenger was embroiled in a row with the driver and tried to wrest control of the bus on a toll road in Majalengka on Monday.

The bus swerved into the path on oncoming traffic, colliding with two cars and causing a lorry to overturn.

Police have appealed for information from witnesses and survivors.

"In the middle of the journey, a passenger attempted to forcibly take control of the steering wheel... and the bus then lost control," police spokesman Atik Suswanti told AFP news agency.

Image source, AFP
Image caption,

Cars were seriously damaged as the bus swerved across the road

The driver was among those killed and the passenger who grabbed the wheel was one of more than 40 people injured, officials said.

It was not clear how many of the casualties were on the bus.

Serious road accidents are common in Indonesia.

In February 2018, 25 people were killed when a tourist bus ran off a road and overturned in West Java.

The previous July, 10 people were killed when a bus travelling from Bali to a town in East Java collided with the back of a lorry.