The Blackheath train accident occurred at 7:03 a.m. on 25 August 2010 when a Metrorail commuter train crashed into a minibus taxi on the Buttskop Road level crossing in Blackheath, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa.
[1] The minibus was carrying fourteen children to school; nine died on the scene and five were hospitalised.
[4] An initial investigation by the Railway Safety Regulator determined that the lights and booms at the crossing were in full working order.
[4] Witnesses stated that the minibus drove around a queue of stopped cars and past the closed half-booms blocking the crossing.
[10] On 22 March 2013 the Supreme Court of Appeal reduced the conviction to culpable homicide and the sentence to an effective eight years' imprisonment.