Abu Dhabi car crash: Eyewitnesses recall accident that killed four Indian brothers, maid

Dubai: The haunting images refuse to fade—a tyre hurtling through the pre-dawn darkness, a car rolling violently off the road, and children thrown from the vehicle in a matter of seconds.

For NS, a 24-year-old aeronautical engineer, and her father RS, the horrific moments of the Abu Dhabi car crash that claimed five lives on January 2 remain seared into their memory.

Speaking exclusively to Gulf News, the father-daughter duo from Dubai said they were the eyewitnesses who saw the exact moment the crash unfolded near Al Ghantoot on the Abu Dhabi–Dubai border.

The accident killed four young Indian brothers in the UAE, Ashaz (14), Ammaar (12), Azzaam (seven) and Ayyash (five), and their family’s domestic helper, Bushra Fayaz Yahu (49), leaving behind the boys’ grieving parents, Abdul Latheef and Rukhsana, and their only sister, 10-year-old Izzaa.

After the injured mother, Rukhsana, was discharged from the hospital and Izzaa learned of the devastating loss of all four of her brothers over the weekend, NS and RS decided to come forward with their account. They said they hope their testimony will save lives by reinforcing a critical safety message: back-seat passengers must wear seatbelts.

It was around 4.30am on January 2. NS and her father were driving back to Dubai after dropping off her brother, a paramedic student in India, at Zayed International Airport following his winter vacation. The roads were quiet, and they were travelling at about 120 km/h.

“Suddenly, we saw the car in front of us swerving and rolling over to the right side,” recalled NS, who works with a European aerospace company.

RS, a driver with a private company who spends his days on UAE roads, said: “I saw a tyre fly towards us. I applied a sudden brake and we had a narrow escape. Luckily, there was no other car behind us.”

The SUV rolled over three to four times before landing upright in its normal position, they said.

RS immediately pulled over. “I immediately called 999 and reported the accident to the police,” NS recalled.

What they witnessed next would haunt them for days.

“We ran towards the car. On our way, we saw a child lying on the road in the last, slowest lane. Another child and the domestic helper were off the road on the sandy area. All of them were motionless,” NS said.

Police called back, asking if the eyewitnesses could offer any help to the injured. “But it wasn’t possible,” NS said quietly.

At first, they could only see two people inside the mangled vehicle. The parents were still strapped into their front seats — the mother in the driver’s seat and the father in the passenger seat.

“I think they had concussions and were unable to move or react. They probably didn’t realise what was going on. I felt they weren’t thrown out because they were wearing seatbelts. The doors appeared jammed. The airbags had inflated and later deflated after the impact,” NS said.

Within five to 10 minutes, police, civil defence teams and ambulances arrived at the scene. When rescue personnel used machinery to split open the car’s boot, they heard a child cry. It was Izzaa, NS learned later.

“After they opened the car, she started crying. She cried only then, so we didn’t know she was still inside,” NS said.

When police spoke to the injured parents, they learned there had been eight people in the car. Officers then searched the area and found two more children who had been thrown forward from the vehicle, NS explained.

A black taxi, believed to be operating as a limousine service and travelling ahead of the family’s car, had also stopped. Its driver appeared confused and panicked.

“That driver didn’t realise what had happened. He only knew something had hit his car. Only after stepping out did he realise it was another vehicle that had crashed,” NS said. The taxi had a small dent, suggesting it may have been struck during the accident.

When Rukhsana’s brother earlier spoke to Gulf News about how the crash occurred, he presented a similar sequence of events, though without detailing what had happened to the vehicle that was hit first.

NS believes more lives could have been saved had all passengers been wearing seatbelts.

“It appears the back-seat passengers were not wearing seatbelts,” she said.

Based on what she observed, she believes the children and the domestic helper may have been thrown from the vehicle through the sunroof or windows as the car rolled. “All the windows were shattered. We couldn’t see the sunroof. I kept wondering how they were ejected: whether the doors opened during the roll and later shut, or whether they were thrown out through the broken sunroof or windows,” she said.

“One of the boys was still alive and was rushed to hospital, while the others had already succumbed to their injuries. When we saw their bodies being taken away, we couldn’t stand there anymore and we left,” she said.
“We were there for a long time. Many cars passed by after that, but nobody stopped, probably because police were already present.”

Initially, NS thought the victims were from an Arab family, given the mother’s attire and the Nissan Patrol bearing a three-digit number plate.

Only later, after seeing news reports, did the father and daughter realise that they were a Kerala family, coincidentally from the same Indian state as their own. They followed news reports about the family with a heavy heart.

Having witnessed an accident of this nature for the first time, the experience has deeply affected both NS and her father.

“We became numb and my father drove extremely carefully afterwards. When I started driving again, the visuals kept coming back. I’ve become a much more conscious driver now,” NS said.

She revealed that when she drove to Sharjah International Airport to drop off her parents on this Saturday, she took a friend along because she didn’t want to drive back alone. “Sometimes those images return. I also feel anxious about my father driving, because he is always on the road.”

“It has hit him hard,” she added.

RS said: “We will cope with it in time, but we keep wondering how long it will take that family to come to terms with this reality and move on. We are praying for them, and we ask everyone else to do the same.”

Meanwhile, the injured mother, Rukhsana, has been discharged from hospital, one of her brothers confirmed to Gulf News.

“She was discharged on Saturday evening, and all of them have gone to my brother’s house in Dubai,” he said.

In what family members described as an extremely painful moment, Izzaa has now been told about the tragic loss of all four of her brothers.

“Somehow, we managed to break the news to her gradually,” the uncle said, adding that the distraught child is now processing the irreplaceable loss.

Rukhsana is now undergoing physiotherapy and will need further follow-up consultations. “They are all trying to come to terms with the reality. It will take time,” her brother said.

The family had earlier told Gulf News that the grieving parents plan to fly back to Kerala when they are fit to travel, to begin the long and difficult process of healing from an unimaginable tragedy.