Man arrested after fatal crash on M5

The driver of the bus involved in a fatal crash on the M5 motorway this morning has been arrested and bailed by police.

As well as the one fatality two other people were seriously injured in the crash which happened near Frankley Services on the M5 in the West Midlands.

Forty people were treated at the scene, on the southbound carriageway between junctions three and four.

Police said the death and one of the serious injuries were from the coach, and the driver of the lorry was also in a serious condition. No children were involved.

Mandip Singh was sat near the back of the coach hit by a lorry this morning on the M5 near Birmingham. He told ITV News that people were bleeding, crying and jumping from the bus.

Emergency services were called at 6.24am via a 999 call to reports of a serious accident.

West Midlands Ambulance Service said 27 of the injured people had been taken to various hospitals around the region - Queen Elizabeth, City and Sandwell hospitals in Birmingham, and Alexandra Hospital, Redditch.

Assistant chief ambulance officer Steve Wheaton told Sky News: "It was a very foggy stretch of road this morning. Police are investigating the exact cause, but the weather has not been helpful."

Several ambulances, rapid response vehicles and a hazardous area response team were sent to the scene, with doctors and ambulance officers.

Eye witness Paul Guppy told BBC News that there were fog patches on the motorway at the time of the crash.

He was driving on the opposite carriageway at about 6.40am.

"There were fog patches, because I was driving through it with my fog lights on. That area is renowned for having fog, there's a lot of low-lying land.

"It was quite horrendous at the time, and then it cleared. Whether the fog was a contributory thing, I don't know."

The coach seemed to have been hit from the rear, on its offside, and was leaning, virtually intact, against a crash barrier, he said.

The coach involved in the crash carried a logo of the company Stagecoach, but a spokesman for the firm said it had been sold to a dealer 18 months ago.

The spokesman did not know who it was sold to.

The motorway was fully reopened on Saturday afternoon.