Gillingham bus disaster
| 1951 Gillingham bus disaster | |
|---|---|
| Details | |
| Date | 4 December 1951 |
| Location | Gillingham, Kent |
| Incident type | Bus-pedestrian crash |
| Cause | Poor lighting. |
| Statistics | |
| Deaths | 24 |
| Injured | 18 |
The Gillingham bus disaster occurred outside Chatham Dockyard, Kent, England, on the evening of 4 December 1951. A double-decker bus ploughed into a company of fifty-two young members of the Royal Marines Volunteer Cadet Corps, aged between nine and thirteen. Twenty-four of the cadets were killed and eighteen injured; at the time it was the highest loss of life in any road accident in British history, until it was surpassed by the 1975 Dibbles Bridge coach crash which killed 33.