Further details have emerged concerning the tragic deaths last weekend of U.K. indie band Viola Beach and their manager, after their car passed through a bridge barrier and plunged into a canal outside Stockholm, Sweden.
London’s Telegraph has since revealed that a large oil tanker sailed under the bridge – which had been opened to let it pass – soon after Viola Beach’s black Nissan plunged into the water, as the crash had not yet been reported.
Swedish police speculate that the ship – which had been given a green light to proceed – may have run into or over the car when it was in the water, explaining the heavy damage.
The ship, named the Tellus, weighs 7500 tonnes fully loaded. Daniel Backman, a spokesman for the Sirius shipping line, has since made a statement to the media, saying:
“No one realised that a car had fallen from the bridge. That was only discovered the next day. No one put out an alert that anything like that had happened, so we didn’t know there had been an accident. There was no way we could have known if we had driven over a car. The vessel is much too large for that.”
He added that the crew’s reaction would have been different had anyone noticed a vehicle in the water:
“We would of course have reacted and stopped. But the outcome for the car would probably not have been different whether the crew had noticed it or not.”
Swedish TV network SVT have reported that the ship’s captain observed an object in the water, but believed it to be “a large mass of snow.”
Viola Beach’s lineup consisted of guitarist and vocalist Kristian Leonard, 20; guitarist River Reeves, 19; bass player Tomas Lowe, 27, and drummer Jack Dakin, 19. Band manager Craig Tarry, age 32, was also present.
There is currently a campaign to get the band’s track ‘Swings & Waterslides’ to number one in the U.K. charts.
Story: Fairfax.
Image: Facebook.
