Accept blame for deaths, bus owner told

 HIGHLANDS police are urging the owner of a bus involved a crash that took 25 lives last week to accept responsibility for the accident.

Twenty-five of the 33 passengers were killed when the 25-seater bus ran off a cliff and plunged 50m to the bank of a river, about 20 minutes drive from Mt Hagen on April 3.

Those killed included 17 men, six women one of whom was pregnant and a five-year-old girl. A councillor, a village court magistrate and a primary school teacher were among those who died.

Assistant Commissioner of Police in the highlands region, Teddy Tei, said police investigations could not be completed because the driver and majority of the passengers were killed in the accident.

Tei told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat programme that normally the police would have questioned the driver, as the key witness.

Police say they’ve received information the driver had been working the entire night before the accident and had not slept.

Tei said the owner of the bus should have given the driver time to rest before beginning another shift.

“That’s the information we have been given.”