A student who survived a coach crash during a gap year trip to Thailand which killed three of his best friends has described the horrifying moment when he realised they were dead.

In written evidence to an inquest, Jack Beagley, 20, from New Cross, said he clung on to his chair as the coach he was travelling on from Bangkok to Chiang Mai hit another bus in the middle of a six-lane highway.

His friends - Max Boomgaarden-Cook, from Baytree Road, Brixton, Bruno Melling-Firth and Conrad Quashie, all 19 - died instantly in the crash in the Khlong Khlung District during the early hours of June 28 last year, just four days into a two month trip around southeast Asia.

An inquest at Southwark Coroner's Court on Wednesday heard evidence the coach driver, who has since been jailed, “made an error” as he drove out of a petrol station into a lane of oncoming traffic.

Mr Beagley, a student at Bristol University, said the group noticed a bus travelling at high speed towards them but did not have time to prepare themselves for the crash.

He said: “I can remember the vehicle coming towards us was coming very fast. We were commenting about it.

“[Our driver] waited for a moment or so. I cannot think of any reason for the coach to wait as he did.

“It happened so quickly we did not have time to move or brace ourselves. I don’t know how but I managed to hold on to my seat.

“I then turned to my friends to speak to them and realised they were not moving. I understood immediately they had been killed.

“We had to kick the door off to get it open. I just wanted to get off the coach.”

Mr Beagley said the group bought tickets for between five and 10 pounds to travel on what later turned out to be an unregulated coach with no seat belts and seats which were not fixed to the floor.

The boys’ mothers are now calling on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to update its advice for British tourists to warn about the dangers of coach travel.

Recording a narrative verdict, Coroner Dr Andrew Harris agreed to write to FCO officials.

He said: “It does seem to me to be a reasonable and sensible solution to make that I could ask the FCO if they have any evidence of unregulated bus travel that they should give the same warning for bus travel as they do for motorcycles”.