At least four seriously injured as coach taking ski trip pupils back to Birmingham overturns on motorway near Reims
A coach carrying British tourists and schoolchildren back from a skiing holiday in the Italian Alps has crashed in northern France, leaving one man dead and at least four people seriously injured.
The coach was returning to Birmingham with 49 passengers on board, including 29 children from Alvechurch middle school in Worcestershire, when the accident happened on the A26 near Ch�lons-en-Champagne, about 30 miles south of Reims, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Interski Snowsport School, the company that organised the trip, said a 59-year-old teacher leading the group had been killed in the accident. A schoolgirl passenger was said to be in a critical condition.
A Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) spokesman said there had been "four to five" serious injuries in the crash and that 22 people had been slightly hurt.
A statement from Interski said: "We are saddened and distressed to report the death of a party leader following a coach accident in the Reims area of northern France at approximately 2.30 GMT this morning. Our thoughts are with the bereaved family and friends, to whom we offer our sincere condolences."
The casualties, who have been taken to hospitals in Reims and Ch�lons-en-Champagne, were a mixture of adults and children, he said.
A spokeswoman for the school, whose pupils are aged between nine and 13, said it had no further information to give. "We are liaising with the police and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office," she added.
Few details of why the crash happened were immediately available. French media said the coach, owned by Solus Coaches of Staffordshire, overturned and crashed into a ditch on the side of the motorway as it made its way back from the Aosta Valley in northern Italy.
Images of the coach on its side and without its front window were shown on news channels. No other vehicle is believed to have been involved. Interski said: "We understand that the coach in question veered from the motorway before coming to rest on its side at the foot of an embankment. The emergency services were alerted by passengers on a following coach, which stopped and assisted with the evacuation and rescue."
Francis Soutric, a local official, told French radio that one of the two drivers on board was among the injured.
Christian de Rocquigny, the local prosecutor, told Le Parisien the injured driver had shown no sign of having drunk alcohol or taken drugs, but he would be taken in for questioning upon leaving hospital. Police would investigate the possibility that he had fallen asleep at the wheel, he added.
The FCO said it was providing consular assistance to those affected and had set up a helpline for those concerned: 020 7008 1500.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/19/one-dead-french-coach-crash
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