The driver of a bus that was hijacked by a 17-year-old last week recounted on Thursday how he urged the youth to let a woman get off to use the restroom so police could be notified of the incident.
Tadashi Hirano, the 57-year-old driver of the Nishi-Nippon Railroad Co. (Nishitetsu) bus, was at the wheel when the knife-wielding teenager hijacked the bus on the Kyushu Expressway. He broke down in tears during a news conference at Nishitetsu headquarters here and apologized for the ordeal in which a 68-year-old female passenger died.
According to Hirano, the hijacking occurred between the Chikushino and Dazaifu interchanges.
The driver said he pleaded with the youth, a teenager from Saga Prefecture who was arrested after police stormed the bus at a service area in Hiroshima Prefecture, to release the 6-year-old girl who was on board, but his pleas were ignored.