Sasha, It's a question of the placement of the phrase "in that accident". In English the meaning of the words can depend on their placement in the sentence.. 1) One of the passengers died in that accident. "In that accident" is a prepositional phrase that implies that he died at the time of the accident. Adverbs of time are placed at the end of a sentence. Since a specific time is implied, the past simple is correct. 2) One of the passengers in that accident has died. In this variation "in that accident' is a prepositional phrase describing where the passengers were located. Since there is no mention of time the present perfect is possible. The passenger might have died after the accident in this sentence. -One of the passengers in that accident died. This is also possible even though the time is not mentioned. When the action occurs at an indefinite time BOTH the present perfect and the past simple are possible.

"Result" does not determine tense. A lot of very bad quality English books tell you that the present perfect indicates result. Well, that's wrong. The clue here is "in that accident". "In that accident" represents a time frame that is completed. Everything that happened "in that accident" is told in the PAST tense, not in the present perfect.

The word "that" tells us that the accident is finished; we're looking back at it as a completed action that isn't influencing or relevant for the present. Imagine a news reporter standing at the scene of the accident. When he speaks to the viewers, he might say, "One person has died in THIS terrible accident and many other have been injured." We'd use present perfect here because it's still relevant for the present story. (Will more people die? What will happen to the injured? etc. )

it is true that one of the main difference between past tense and present perfect tense is that the latter emphasizes the influence on the result. but here the correct answer is B, because it is only a statement, stating the fact. there is no context to refer to the result of the action "died", so B is a better choice~~~ if there is another sentence following the one above like, we feel sorry ect, then A is better~~~ have a nice day~~~

Also don;t forget that Journalists in their quest for eye catching headlines will use the present perfect to create a sense of urgency or a 'right now' feeling to headlines and text' e.g 'The Prime Minister has announced.......' '10 people have been killed.....'