Stagecoach bosses have revealed the cause of a Perth High School bus fire and say they have taken steps to prevent it happening again.
It is exactly a year since a bus full of Perth bound pupils burst into flames on the A90 between between Inchture and Errol.
Miraculously, all the high school pupils on board manged to get to safety before fire destroyed the double decker vehicle.
Before now, Stagecoach bosses had not revealed the cause of the blaze.
But they have now made public that a component failure was to blame.
And a spokesperson for Stagecoach East Scotland said the company had changed its maintenance procedures as a result.
She added: “We now have added measures in place to reduce the risk of this happening again including working with the manufacture to reduce the operational stress on these engines.”
Stagecoach could not predict ‘alarming’ blaze
Stagecoach only revealed the cause of the fire after Labour councillor for Carse of Gowrie Alasdair Bailey called for the company to make the outcome of its investigation public.
He described the incident as “very alarming” for the pupils involved.
The Stagecoach spokesperson said the safety of passengers, employees and road users “is our absolute priority”.
Meanwhile, she added the component failure “could not have been predicted”.
And she said Stagecoach works with organisations including the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency to investigate incidents.
“In the context of the millions of miles operated by buses across the UK every day, incidents in the sector are relatively rare.
“Our investigation has now concluded and confirmed that the incident was due to component failure which in turn caused secondary damage.
“This secondary damage combusted resulting in the vehicle catching fire.”
Stagecoach bosses must learn from their mistakes
Councillor Bailey wrote to Stagecoach East Scotland managing director Douglas Robertson to raise concerns about the company’s silence over the investigation.
He said it was vital the public knew that Stagecoach had fully probed the incident.
“Fortunately nobody was hurt in last year’s incident but it was very alarming for the kids and their parents nonetheless.
“The only bad mistakes are the ones that we fail to learn from.
“I’m pleased that Stagecoach have responded to my calls for transparency by sharing detail of the cause of this incident.
“That will give a lot of reassurance that the same can’t happen again.”
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