Fiery Bus Crash Kills 19 in RAF Band

A double-decker bus carrying a British military band collided with a gasoline tanker truck on a superhighway today and burst into flames. At least 19 Royal Air Force bandsmen were burned to death, police said.

“The highway is a sea of flame,” a Bavarian police spokesman said.

He said an investigation indicated that the bandsmen had fled to the rear of the bus in an effort to escape the searing flames but that the door there may have been jammed.

The spokesman said the bus carrying about 40 members of the Royal Air Force band collided with the tanker truck at Langenbruck, 12 miles south of Igolstadt on the Nuremberg-Munich Autobahn in Bavaria.

At least 19 bandsmen died, he said, adding that about 24 other people were injured, several of them seriously, in the accident on the icy highway.

1,200-Gallon Load

The spokesman said it was believed the whole of the tanker’s 1,200-gallon load of aviation fuel spilled and caught fire.

Dozens of police, firemen and rescue workers rushed to the scene and the highway, lined with deep snow, was closed for several hours.

Witnesses described the burnt-out shell of the bus with charred bodies lying in a macabre tangle of wreckage that included brass instruments melted by the heat.