Summer 2016. Coldplay's front figure Chris Martin is shaking with his voice. The nearly 100,000 people in the audience at the Glastonbury festival are holding their breath. The spotlights are on.
That band reminds us of us. The joy they felt, the hope..., says the world star from the stage.
The band was called Viola Beach. It was a terrible accident, they were taken from us. That's why we'll make sure they get to be the headline now. I really hope we can do your song justice, guys.
On the huge big screens, Viola Beach's members can be seen. On stage, Coldplay is playing their song "Boys that sing". In the audience, people are wondering what really happened that night in February on the highway bridge in Södertälje.
That question is still unanswered.
Unexplainable accident
It was the night of February 13, 2016. Earlier that evening, the British rock band Viola Beach had played at the festival "Where's the music?" in Norrköping, their first concert ever abroad. The four young people from Warrington in northwestern England were on the verge of a major breakthrough. Now they were on their way to Arlanda to fly home – and then on to the rest of the world.
In the canal under the highway bridge in Södertälje, the oil tanker Tellus was to pass. A number of trucks and cars stopped when the barriers went down and the bridge slowly began to open. At an estimated 90 kilometers per hour, the rental car with Viola Beach and their manager came in the left lane.
That car did not stop.
On surveillance cameras, you can see how the car brakes to then swerve out into the shoulder, past the queue. Once again, it seems to brake sharply - then it disappears from the camera.
Witnesses have described how the car at high speed plowed right through two rows of lowered barriers and then just continued forward. The car, a nearly brand new SUV, hit the bridge abutment so that the roof was cut off - then it plunged about 30 meters down into the icy water.
Probably, the four band members and their manager died when the car hit the bridge abutment, according to the police.
How could they not understand what was going on? Maybe they saw an opportunity to pass and the speed was high, but still. It seems unlikely that you act like that. Yes, the visibility was poor and it's possible that they thought the shoulder was an open lane. But it's a mystery, says police officer Martin Bergholm who was involved in the investigation.
”Think about it a lot”
The car was thoroughly examined, but no faults were found. Barriers, traffic lights, and warning signs were functioning. The driver was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
What happened inside the car just before the accident, only the five young men, all between 19 and 32 years old, who sat there knew. The police have not been able to determine why the driver acted as he did. There has been speculation that he fainted or fell asleep, that he was looking at his phone or that it was even a case of extended suicide.
The police actually didn't come to any conclusion. Through constructed films, we were able to show how the accident happened, but no more than that. I still think about it a lot, how it's possible. It's so strange, says Martin Bergholm.
The boat that was on its way to pass saw something fall down, I remember, but identified it as ice. The crew even asked the control center if it was okay to pass and got a "yes" as an answer.
After the accident, Martin Bergholm was in contact with the band members' relatives back in England. The work was urgent.
I had a lot of contact with their home country regarding the death notice. Given that it was a rock band, we understood that it would have a major impact in the media. So, it was important that the relatives got the information as soon as possible, before the media started writing about it.
And the media did write.
Column meters after column meters. Both in Sweden and in England, it was reported extensively.
There were safety measures with barriers and lights. Everything was in place so that you wouldn't fail. There was a queue. If it had been a bridge that opened upwards, they might have gotten a few bruises and a couple of broken bones. Now it opens in a different way and then it became so terrible.
”They jump up and down”
A while after the fatal accident, Viola Beach's debut album was released posthumously, largely due to the efforts of the band members' families. Several of the songs have reached high rankings on the charts. "Boys that sing" is still played on the radio and in clubs around the world. Back in Warrington, there is a large bronze memorial featuring the guys and their manager.
I think they are overjoyed. I think they are out there somewhere and jumping up and down and saying: "Yes, come on, get people to listen to our music", Fin Reeves, brother of one of the band members, has said to the BBC.
Mikael Widerberg/TT
Fact: The course of the accident
TT
The accident in the northbound direction on the highway bridge in Södertälje occurred on the night of Saturday, February 13, in connection with the bridge opening.
At 01:59:37, the red light starts blinking.
At 02:00:26, all four barriers go down. The first pair of barriers is 100 meters from the bridge, the second pair of barriers is 10 meters from the bridge.
Without engaged warning lights and lowered barriers, the bridge cannot be opened.
The exact time when the accident car drives through the barriers is not known, there is no technology that registers the moment.
From the first forced barriers, it takes approximately two to three seconds before the car drives into the bridge section that is on its way up and then plunges down into the canal.
Source: Swedish Maritime Administration
