‘Runaway’ charter bus injures one, strikes cars, utility poles in downtown Bethesda

‘Mechanical malfunction’ of brakes likely caused Sunday’s incident, MoCo fire department official says

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June 15, 2026 4:34 p.m.

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A charter bus carrying 15 people collided with multiple cars and utility poles along Route 355 in downtown Bethesda on Sunday evening, resulting in the hospitalization of one person and damage along the road, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS) spokesperson Pete Piringer told Bethesda Today on Monday.

The incident, which spanned a one-third-of-a-mile stretch of Route 355 between Rosedale Avenue and Jones Bridge Road, occurred around 5:45 p.m., according to Piringer. Route 355 is called Rockville Pike at Jones Bridge Road and becomes Wisconsin Avenue farther south at the intersection with Woodmont Avenue and Terrace Garden Way.

The “runaway” bus, which had 15 passengers and a driver on board, likely had a mechanical “malfunction” with its brakes, Piringer said.

MCFRS crews evaluated several people on the bus, and one person was later transported to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Piringer and Montgomery County police spokesperson Degan Bartels.

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County police also responded to the incident and are investigating, though no foul play is suspected, according to Bartels.

The charter bus’s collision path left a wake of damaged vehicles, light poles and fallen wires for several blocks, according to Piringer. One utility pole near Chestnut Street and Wisconsin Avenue was snapped in half.

Piringer said he could not specify exactly how many cars or poles were struck by the bus.

Following the incident, Wisconsin Avenue was closed to traffic in both directions for several hours as the area was cleaned up and Pepco fixed its broken utility poles. It is unclear when the roads reopened.

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On Monday morning, Piringer reported MCFRS crews responded around 8:45 a.m. to a report of “wires down” at Wisconsin and Rosedale avenues. The fallen wires are presumed to be related to the Sunday night incident, he said.

As of Monday afternoon, there are no power outages reported in downtown Bethesda or the area where the incident occurred, according to Pepco’s online outage map.

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine