Two killed as speeding car falls off Abu Dhabi flyover

Abu Dhabi: Two people died on Friday afternoon after their car veered off the road and plunged from a fly over down into the junction below.

The driver and passenger, an Egyptian and a French national, died, a senior police officer told Gulf News at the scene of the crash. "Both seem to in their 30s."

The flyover straddles the junction of Sa'ada Street and Airport Road close to the passport offices and Abu Dhabi Police Headquarters.

A large crowd gathered at the scene of the crash. All that was left of the car was a mangled mass of red metal.

Eyewitness

Bassam Eisa, a Syrian, terrified by what he had witnessed, said he was at the end of the zebra crossing on Sa'ada Street beyond the flyover when he heard a loud bang and a red object hurtling down over the bridge. He said that some motorists must have had a lucky miss.

The car was travelling on Airport Road out of Abu Dhabi towards the airport.

"The car must have been travelling at very high speed," an Abu Dhabi Civil Defence officer said. "The fact that it broke through the cement barrier of the flyover shows that the main culprit is speeding even if there was a serious mechanical failure."

The bodies of the two were taken to a hospital in the capital for identification and contact their next of kin. Teams of Abu Dhabi police, civil defence and forensics sifted through the location and the remains of the car have been taken to a police depot for a detailed investigation, according to officers at the scene.

The police cordoned off the location of the crash from four sides and traffic was diverted through other routes into the capital and out. Sa'ada Street was cut off at the location and the flyover was inaccessible to traffic.