EDMONDS — The girl told police she saw the speedometer read 80 mph not long before the crash.
The car she was riding in went off the road, down an embankment and into a tree.
The driver, 16-year-old Zach Langer, was killed. A passenger, 15-year-old Noah Vires, also died. Three other teens in the car, ages 13 to 15, survived.
Edmonds police have closed their investigation into the crash that occurred July 22 on a curvy stretch of Olympic View Drive within Southwest County Park. Speed was determined to be the primary factor, according to the investigator’s reports. The Daily Herald recently obtained the documents through a public records request.
The crash happened on a Friday night. The calls to 911 started around 11:30.
One of the girls who survived had escaped the totaled BMW 325i by kicking out the windshield.
She flagged down help from the roadside. Two other survivors were freed from the wreckage by firefighters. Some, but not all, of the teens were wearing seat belts, according to the reports by Edmonds traffic detective Eric Falk.
The speed limit on that stretch of road is 20 mph and the road is heavily wooded on both sides, Falk wrote. The road was damp but not wet at the time of the crash. Investigators believe Langer lost control entering a curve.
The BMW crossed the center line, jumped the sidewalk and went airborne. It hit the tree on the driver’s side, cracking the tree. As the car then flipped upside down, it struck a second tree.
One of the girls told Falk she had been yelling at Langer to slow down but someone else was egging him to go faster.
One girl suffered a sprained shoulder. Another girl had two broken legs, a broken arm and a broken jaw. A third passenger, a boy, also had a broken leg.
Investigators were told the group had gone for hamburgers before driving around town that night.
Falk found that Langer’s limited driving experience was a factor in the crash. The detective ruled out the possibility of racing.
All five teens were students in the Edmonds School District.
Vires was enrolled at Scriber Lake High School. Langer was attending Edmonds-Woodway High School and worked at a local Mexican restaurant, according to his obituary. He played hockey and had volunteered several times for a charity that builds homes in Mexico.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @rikkiking.
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