REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA – Death may be uncertain certainty. Aisyah (32 years) might have never imagined about the tragedy of deadly bus that took 14 lives on last Friday, including her.
The mother of two worked in a meatball stall, Bakso Ojolali, in Cisarua, Bogor, for quite some time. At the afternoon, she was working with a colleague, Aap. Around 05.30 pm, Aap left the stall and went for prayer. He shocked, as he returned and only found the body of Aisyah, lying down after the deadly bus hit the meatball stall.
Aisyah was one of 14 lives in the serial car crash triggered by Karunia Bhakti bus at 06.40 pm. The brake failure is believed to cause the bus loosing its control then hit a number of cars before it plunged into a ravine. The incident was the worst in 2012 in the jurisdiction of the Bogor district.
Ading, a relative, had just learnt the tragedy from his friend. He wasted no time to tell Aisyah’s husband, Masgim (40 years). “I told her husband who then went right away to the accident scene, only to find his wife passed away in the accident,” Ading said.
Aisyah was a mother of two, Ramdani (7 years) and Ranianto (14 years). The tragedy was a heavy blow to Aisyah’s family. “We hope the authority will punish the culprits, they made me losing my wife,” Masgim shed the tears yet sounded furious.
Masgim hopes the tragedy would never happened to anybody else. Not only takes 14 lives, the deadly bus also causes 47 people injured including 10 people of them who suffer from serious injury.
The running driver
The bus driver, Lukman Iskandar (43 years), officially became an accused after had run because afraid of being beaten up by the mass. "I panicked and was afraid. I jumped out minutes before the bus reached the bank," he said on Saturday. Lukman was arrested while at one of the bus pooling stations in Garut six hours after the incident.
He said the bus was roadworthy but had troubles in its back wheels when passing the Puncak road that had caused the black smoke. "We then made some repair and the bus then operated again," he said.
The bus that carried around 30 passengers passed Jalan Raya Puncak but when it reached the section before Pafesta Cisarua its brake failed to function making it to run into another bus Doa Ibu serving the Tasikmalaya-Jakarta route coming from Bogor in front of it.
He said he then turned the wheel but hit a billboard, five motorcycles, two mini-buses, an electricity pole, a shop and the fence of a villa before plunging into a seven-meter deep ravine.
"I jumped before the bus plunged," he said.
The chief of the traffic police unit of the Bogor resort police command, Adjunct Commissioner Syarif Zainal Abidin, said the driver would be charged with Article 310 Paragraph 4 for negligence that caused deaths. "He is facing a maximum penalty of six years. But we would still investigate and develop the case further to see if other elements were involved in it. What is clear is his escape would become an incriminating factor," he said.