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ACCIDENT

One dead in bus crash

One person has died and 14 others were injured in a bus accident on Färingsö west of Stockholm, police reported on Wednesday.

Published: 19 May 2010 17:51 CEST

“Many are injured. Large-scale rescue resources have been dispatched to the scene of the accident,” Ulf Lindgren, information officer at Stockholm Police’s central communication bureau, told news agency TT.

Four of the 14 were seriously injured. The remainder have minor injuries, said Björn Engström, press spokesman of the Stockholm police communication centre.

The accident occurred when the bus for an unknown reason went off on the hard shoulder and tipped over. The bus, from Westin Buss, was lying on its side in a field near Färentunavägen.

The bus, which was described as a tourist coach, was carrying about 30 retired passengers when the accident occurred at around 3.30pm near Svartsjö Zoo next to Skå Edeby airfield in Ekerö county.

“We received a call about 10 minutes later at 3.41pm and have sent a lot of resources to the scene,” said Lindgren.

According to DN.se, 12 ambulances and two medical teams from Södersjukhuset and Danderyd that can provide medical assistance on the scene were dispatched to the site, as well as firefighters from Stockholm, Ekerö and Botkyrka and numerous police officers.

Police did not disclose the where the passengers were from, but said that the bus had left from Reimersholme in Stockholm and was on its way back when the accident occurred. They added that the passengers were members of a club for retirees.

“They had been out on a day trip,” said Ulf Lindgren, press spokesman for the Stockholm police communication centre.

He added that a bus has been requisitioned to pick up those who were not injured in the crash. According to the operation manager in place, all the passengers were Swedish.

Karl-Gustaf Järn lives near the crash site. He came home a little while after the accident.

“They have closed off the road so it is completely blocked,” he told TT. “There are police cars, ambulances and fire trucks the whole way. I had to talk myself past them to come home.”

He could not completely see the bus accident from his home.

Johan Elfver, information director at Ekerö county, said that the county is waiting to hear more about emergency services.

“We are preparing our work with a crisis group, but we must first wait for information from emergency services in order to do a good job,” he said.

Karolinska Hospital’s press office declined to comment on the condition of the injured.

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ACCIDENT

Cable car survivor must be returned to family in Italy, Israel court rules

An Israeli court ruled Monday that a boy whose parents died in an Italian cable car crash be returned to family in Italy, after his grandfather was accused of illegally bringing him to Israel.

Published: 25 October 2021 17:39 CEST
Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021
Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

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Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.   

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