Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Two crashes in Southern California claim 10, mostly teenagers

Associated Press

IRVINE, Calif. – A pair of nighttime crashes hours apart in Southern California killed 10 people, most of them teenagers and nearly all burned beyond recognition including a group of five boys and girls returning from an amusement park, officials said Saturday.

A 16-year-old unlicensed driver was the lone survivor of the crash of a BMW sedan at 2:15 a.m. Saturday carrying six teens returning from the Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park in Buena Park, in its popular October guise as “Knott’s Scary Farm,” authorities said.

The car flew off Interstate 5 in Irvine, crashed and caught fire, killing three teenage boys and two teenage girls, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Steve Concialdi said. The sedan was flattened on top and covered with burn marks.

“This is a horrific accident,” Concialdi said.

Both girls and one of the boys killed were not wearing a seat belt, the California Highway Patrol said.

The male victims included two 14-year-olds and a 15-year-old, all from Orange County, the CHP said.

Authorities had not yet identified the teens, but the three boys all played for the same soccer team, the Los Angeles Times reported.

They had failed to show up for their 8 a.m. game for the elite players of the Mission Viejo Soccer Club. Coach Billy McNicol said he got a call afterward from a family member that all three had been killed.

“These are good boys,” he told the Times, his voice breaking. “We are devastated. Just devastated.”

Five more people were killed about five hours earlier on Friday night, when three vehicles collided on a two-lane road on the edge of Chino, a city east of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County. Authorities were working to identify the dead and determine the cause Saturday, police spokeswoman Monica Gutierrez said.

The lone survivor of that three-vehicle crash – the driver of a Honda Civic – was released from the hospital, Gutierrez said. The dead included four in a Chevy truck and one in a Honda Accord.

The four dead in the truck were 18-year-old Nathan Dominguez and three friends, all recent graduates from the same high school.