‘Catastrophic’ brake failure, neglected repairs contributed to deadly 2020 icefield bus rollover, judge finds

A complete failure of the braking system triggered by neglected mechanical repairs contributed to a deadly tour bus rollover in the Columbia Icefield, a fatality inquiry has concluded.

In a report made public late last week, Judge Vaughn Myers of the Alberta Court of Justice details a string of catastrophic oversights that preceded the rollover that killed three passengers and severely injured 14. 

It was the afternoon of July 18, 2020, when a heavy-duty vehicle known as an Ice Explorer — carrying 24 tourists across the scenic expanse of the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park —  tumbled down a steep embankment, landing on its roof.

Dionne Durocher, 24, of North Battleford, Sask., Kamleshbhai Patel, 58, and Griva Patel, 28, of Edmonton, were ejected from the vehicle and died of their injuries within minutes.

In his findings, Myers calls on the tour company Pursuit — also known as Brewster — to make a series of safety improvements, concluding that warnings about the faltering safety of the vehicle went unheeded in the days and weeks before the crash.

The investigation determined the Ice Explorer had dangerously worn components, inadequate brake power and lacked routine maintenance.

Myers said the fatality inquiry, held in October 2025, sought to examine not only policy measures that could prevent similar tragedies but also “questions that were not clearly answered” by the RCMP and Occupational Health and Safety investigators, most critically any lapses in the maintenance of the vehicle. 

Ice Explorers are large, wide-bodied, three-axle, off-road buses, also known as snow coaches, that have been used in the Columbia Icefield since the 1980s.

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They’re purpose-built for icy terrain, with specialized brake systems that include a transmission lock-up to assist when the machine is on a descent — but only if the vehicle is in gear.

Court heard that, in the moments before the crash, the Ice Explorer was descending a steep slope known as the Lateral Moraine Road. 

The vehicle was in neutral and, lacking engine-retarding force, accelerated to a speed between 41 to 49 km/h, far beyond its maximum powered speed of 14 km/h. 

The driver applied the manual brakes, but due to severe mechanical defects, they failed. 

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The driver lost control and the bus rolled one and a half times down the slope, with passengers ejected into the rocky terrain below. 

“There are two primary contributing factors,” Myers wrote. “The first is the driver, for reasons unknown, negotiating the lateral moraine in neutral and without the six-wheel drive engaged,” Myers wrote. 

“This configuration, on such a grade, would create a situation in which vehicle speed accumulates rapidly. Unable to use engine power to slow the bus, the driver would have to rely on conventional braking.”

Pursuit’s policy at the time was for drivers to put the Ice Explorers in neutral at the top of the hill and then, at the start of the steepest descent, put them in gear.