A tragic car crush between two burning container trucks on the accident-prone Navale Bridge Pune slope claimed 8 lives, including a family and a child. Dive into the deep-rooted issues of poor road engineering, persistent brake failure incidents, and the urgent need for a highway safety overhaul in Pune-Bengaluru Highway.
Pune Navale Bridge Accident
The Pune-Bengaluru Highway, a critical lifeline for West and South India, was the scene of yet another horrific and completely avoidable tragedy this week. A multi-vehicle collision near the infamous Navale Bridge claimed the lives of eight people and left over a dozen severely injured, once again shining a harsh light on the systemic flaws in highway design and safety enforcement. At the heart of the disaster was a family returning from a temple trip, whose car was instantly crushed between two massive container trucks before being engulfed in a fierce fire.
The sheer scale of the accident is chilling. According to preliminary police investigations, the catastrophic chain of events began when a heavily loaded container truck, traveling from Satara towards Mumbai, approached the notorious slope near the Katraj tunnel. Authorities suspect the driver either lost control due to excessive speeding or experienced sudden brake failure on the steep descent. The massive vehicle plowed into a line of cars, triggering a pile-up involving as many as 7 to 13 vehicles. In the most tragic instance, a small car carrying the Dabhade family—Dattatray Dabhade, his wife Shanta, their daughter Swati, and a three-year-old family friend, Mokshita Reddy—was sandwiched and crushed between two trucks.
The impact was so devastating that several vehicles immediately caught fire, a blaze likely exacerbated by the car’s CNG kit explosion. Fire Brigade and rescue teams worked through the wreckage to retrieve bodies that were charred beyond recognition. The total casualty count reached eight, including five members of the ill-fated car and the driver and cleaner of one of the trucks. The tragic loss of an entire family underscores the human cost of negligence on this particular stretch.
