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Cause of crash may never be known |
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Written by Lethbridge Herald
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Tuesday, November 24 2009, 8:49 PM |
Unless a vehicle inspection this week reveals a mechanical failure, RCMP say they may never know exactly what caused a head-on crash near Nanton last weekend which killed three teen women and a young Calgary mother.
With speed and alcohol already ruled out as possible factors, investigators brought in a certified mechanic Tuesday to check the wreckage of a northbound car which went out of control Saturday afternoon on Highway 2 and slammed into a southbound car.
“(Mechanical failure) is a possibility. There could have been a steering failure, a brake failure. Maybe a gas pedal got stuck,” said RCMP spokesman Sgt. Patrick Webb.
“If we eliminate all those other possibilities, we’re left with driver error. (Because no one in the vehicle survived), we may never know what happened with that (northbound) driver,” he said.
The crash claimed the lives of three Calgary childhood friends Joilinn Edgar, 19, Cayley Chapman, 18, and Emma Ransom, 19, who were heading home from an overnight trip to Lethbridge. The car they were in went off the highway while rounding a corner just north of Nanton and crossed a grass median into the path of an oncoming car carrying the mother and her baby daughter. The six-month-old baby survived the crash, suffering only minor cuts.
The name of the mother has been withheld at the request of her family.
Although investigators have now determined which of the three girls was driving the northbound car, they aren’t making those findings public just yet, said Webb.
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