Bus Operators Found Guilty Again over 2016 Crash in Karuizawa

Tokyo, May 22 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo High Court on Friday upheld a lower court’s guilty sentences for a bus operator’s president and former employee over a ski tour bus crash in the town of Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, in 2016 that killed 15 people, mainly university students, and injured 26 others. In the small hours of Jan. 15, 2016, the large tour bus, which was on its way from Tokyo to a ski resort in the central Japan prefecture, fell down the cliff while driving down a curve section. Thirteen of the dead victims were university students and the other two were male drivers of the bus. The main issue in the trial was whether the two defendants, charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury, could predict the accident. The defense pleaded not guilty again, denying the predictability of the accident. The high court supported the June 2023 ruling by Nagano District Court, which sentenced Misaku Takahashi, the 64-year-old president of Tokyo-based bus operator ESP, to three years in prison and Tsuyoshi Arai, a 57-year-old former employee in charge of managing bus operations, to four years in prison. The Nagano court concluded that Takahashi and Arai had the deceased driver who was at the wheel operate the bus without accurately understanding his driving skills although they could predict that he might cause an accident resulting in death and injury. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]