A Dominican newspaper reports that an excursion bus carrying ten passengers from the P&O Azura was involved in a serious accident yesterday in the country of Dominica. One passenger died and nine others were injured.
The Azura previously sailed from Southampton about two weeks ago.
The newspaper reports that the bus was coming from Antrim, where the cruise passengers were enjoying the Emerald Pool tourist attraction, when the accident took place.
P&O Cruises released a statement: “A bus operated by a shore excursion provider was involved in a collision in Dominica on Wednesday lunchtime. The bus was carrying 12 passengers, including 10 guests from Azura. The cause of the accident is not yet known.”
Excursion accidents like this are not uncommon. Earlier this year, an excursion bus taking passengers from a MSC cruise ship to a tourist attraction crashed in Dominica, killing an infant.
Cruise passengers from the Celebrity Summit cruise ship were seriously injured in an excursion vehicle mishap in Dominica. In 2009, a dozen passengers from the Summit were seriously injured when an open air excursion vehicle ran off the road. We represented passengers against the cruise line and the excursion company in that accident. You can read information about the Dominica excursion accident in an article “Injured Visitors to Dominica Airlifted to Miami.“
A passenger from the Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas was killed in an excursion bus accident near Falmouth, Jamaica and numerous other passengers were injured in January of this year.
There have been several other excursion bus accidents in the last several years involving cruise passengers.
Many of these incidents involved substandard and poorly maintained vehicles, reckless driving and/or buses not equipped with seat belts.
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Photo Credit: Dominica News Online