No snow tires on van carrying N.B. school team on deadly trip

Police at the scene of a weekend accident that killed seven teenage athletes and an elementary school teacher in northern New Brunswick said the van they were in may have lost control after hitting the shoulder of the road.

The Bathurst High School boys' basketball team was returning home from a game in Moncton on Saturday when the 15-seat Ford Club Wagon van fishtailed and collided with an oncoming transport truck. There were 12 passengers in the van.

Highway 8 was covered with snow early Saturday, said RCMP Cpl. Daniel Melanson. The snow would have obscured where the road and shoulder dividers were, he said.

"It would have been very difficult to know where the actual vehicle lane would have been," he said.

Police have been on the scene since the accident occurred and now say the vehicle appears to have touched the shoulder of the road before spinning into the path of the truck travelling in the opposite lane.

At the time of the accident, the van was fitted with all-season tires, not snow tires, officials say.

The investigation is continuing.

A mechanical inspection of the van is also being conducted by RCMP to determine if it had any mechanical problems, said RCMP Sgt. Derek Strong.

Transport Canada has brought in its own three-person collision team to investigate the fatal crash. The team will attempt to match the damage to the vehicle with the injuries to the passengers.

Transportation policy to be reviewed

Travelling in the winter with school sports teams is part of high school life in northern New Brunswick, said Supt. John McLaughlin, but the school board will review its winter transportation policies in light of this tragedy.

In the meantime, all extracurricular activities at the high school have been put on hold and the vans are not being used to transport students.

The Department of Education may also be conducting its own review of policy regarding travel for extracurricular events, said Minister Kelly Lamrock.

"I think any time you have something happen that has an unacceptable result, you review," Lamrock told CBC News. "But at this point in time, you also need facts."

Department guidelines indicate that wherever possible, students should be taken to activities in school buses and not smaller passenger vehicles.

It also indicates that principals should not authorize overnight travel to any off-site activities. But in what several officials have described as a grey area, the guidelines define the transport as consistent travel throughout the night.

Experts will be brought in to conduct the investigation, Lamrock said, and after the factors that caused the crash are determined, the government will move forward.

"Then our job is to learn from that and now knowing the factors that led to this result, see if there's anything in terms of policy or resources that would've changed the outcome," he said.

Safety of vans questioned

In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued three separate warnings about similar transport vans between 2001 and 2005, citing worries about the vehicle's stability.

Kennebecasis Valley High School in Rothesay, N.B., previously used a 15-passenger van but halted its use, said principal Robert Munro.

"The cost of maintaining it and the safety issue and the liability with having a van is significant," Munro said.

Some school boards in Saskatchewan and all of Nova Scotia have also banned the use of the vehicles.

Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada to have a complete ban on the use of large passenger vans in schools.

"It's known in the industry as the non-conforming school bus," said David White, spokesperson with the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board. "In other words, it does not meet the same construction or equipment as your standard school bus."

The vehicle does well in bumper-to-bumper crashes but has stability issues, White said.

In Nova Scotia, volunteers can still drive students in smaller passenger vehicles but must have liability insurance, a motor vehicle inspection, a valid drivers licence and enough seatbelts for all the passengers.

A public funeral service will be held Wednesday for the seven teenagers killed in the accident. It starts at 2 p.m. AT (1 p.m. ET). CBCNews.ca will be carrying the event on a live video stream.

A separate funeral is planned Thursday for elementary school teacher Elizabeth Lord, 51, who also died in the crash. Her husband, the basketball team's coach, was driving the van when it went off the road.