On the evening of 4 November 2013, a Nor-Way Bussekspress vehicle operating the Valdresekspressen route between Årdalstangen and Oslo was hijacked at about 5:30 pm on Fylkesvei 53, a road located between Øvre Årdal, in Årdal Municipality, Vestland county, and Tyin, in the neighbouring Vang Municipality, Innlandet county. The driver and both passengers on board were killed with a knife during the incident.
The isolated location and an initial mistaken belief that a nearby tunnel was closed meant police took more than an hour to reach the scene. The situation was initially reported as a road accident, and before emergency responders arrived, some passersby had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the man responsible to open the bus door. The fire brigade and ambulance service arrived before police and took the suspect into custody. Counter-terrorism police had been alerted but were stood down once the suspect was detained. The suspect gave himself up voluntarily and had self-inflicted knife wounds; he was taken to a hospital.
The three people killed were named as Margaret Molland Sanden, 19, of Årdalstangen, a student at Oslo University College; Brahim Khouya, 53, a Swedish citizen who was returning home to Gothenburg after working in Årdal; and Arve Kvernhaug, 55, of Bagn, the bus driver.
The suspected hijacker, Peter Beak, was a man from South Sudan born in 1982 who had applied for asylum in Norway in April 2013. His application was rejected in June on the grounds that he had previously applied for asylum in Spain, and he was settled in Årdal in August. He hijacked the bus the day before he was due to be returned to Spain, though authorities said he had not been informed of the impending deportation. According to Frode Forfang, director of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, Beak had told police upon arrival in Norway that he had psychiatric problems and had cited health issues as grounds for seeking asylum; authorities had not considered his behaviour to raise security concerns.
Beak was held at a psychiatric clinic in Bergen and was scheduled for a preliminary hearing with the Criminal Investigation Service on 14 November 2013, but declined to answer questions. As of April 2014 he had still not made a statement to police, having been held in prison and under observation in a medical facility, with a trial expected in autumn 2014. In September 2014, he died from injuries sustained after jumping off a roof while in prison.
The killings prompted reports of insults directed at other asylum-seekers living at the centre in Årdal, and the local bus operator agreed with the centre operator that asylum-seekers would not travel on the route for a week, for the drivers' sake. Prime Minister Erna Solberg visited Årdal on 16 November 2013 to lay flowers and light candles in commemoration. Police faced criticism over their response time, prompting calls for a national minimum response standard. A separate hijacking on the same route had occurred in 2003, in which the driver was killed and passengers wounded.
