Driver indicted over bus crash near Ben Gurion Airport that killed 4
Alexander Leibman charged with negligent homicide, after steering Egged bus into concrete bus stop on Route 40 in December
The driver of a bus that crashed into a bus stop near Ben Gurion Airport in December, killing four people and injuring 14, was indicted Thursday on negligent homicide charges at the Central District Court.
The No. 947 bus, which had left Jerusalem for Haifa at 6 p.m. on December 22, hit a bus stop at the side of the road at Bedek Junction on Route 40. The impact caused massive damage to the vehicle, which was partially crushed by the bus stop’s concrete roof.
Three women and one man died in the crash.
The driver for the Egged bus company was taken into custody a day later after being treated for his injuries at Beilinson Hospital. He has been named as Alexander Leibman, a 44-year old resident of Haifa.
Leibman is also charged on multiple counts of reckless driving that caused a traffic accident in which a person was harmed.
Prosecutors asked for his license to be suspended until the end of legal proceedings against him.
The indictment details how the bus swerved from the right-most lane out of three to the left lane, and immediately back to the right lane, off the road and crashing into the concrete bus stop, which isn’t one of that line’s stops.
“As a result of the impact the roof of the bus stop penetrated the front-right side of the bus, caused the death of four passengers and the injury of about ten others,” it said.
An initial investigation at the time had found that the bus swerved for an unknown reason. A Magen David Adom ambulance service medic said that the driver was trapped in his seat, but was conscious when emergency services arrived at the scene. A senior police officer told Channel 12 after the accident that investigators suspected that the driver had been distracted. His phone was confiscated.
Channel 13 reported at the time that Leibman had told investigators that he did not have an explanation for the accident, saying, “I’m still in shock, I don’t know how it happened.”
The rescue operation took some four hours and involved firefighters and paramedics.
Two women, aged 67 and 19, were left in serious condition, MDA said. Twelve other people were lightly injured.
