About 8:00 p.m. A.s.t., on June 15, 1981, a 40-passenger tour bus, eastbound on Denali Park Road, Denali National Park, Alaska, ran off the right edge of the roadway at a very slow speed and rolled to its right down a hillside. Twenty-five of the thirty-two occupants were ejected as the bus rolled 2 1/4 times down the hillside. Twenty-six occupants were injured, five were killed, and the bus sustained moderate damage. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the student driver to give adequate attention to the driving task and his misjudgment of his lateral position on the road which resulted in the bus leaving the right edge of the roadway and rolling down the hillside. Contributing to the accident was the driver's lack of training and experience in this tour bus operation. Contributing to the severity of the occupants injuries and to the fatalities was the lack of occupant restraints which permitted the ejection of most of the occupants.
Abstract