Overview
- The crash was reported just after 9:30 p.m. Monday when a 2024 BMW M3 traveling eastbound left the roadway and went down a steep embankment.
- All three occupants died at the scene: a 21-year-old driver from Yuba City, a 27-year-old passenger from Salem, Oregon, and a 17-year-old passenger from San Jose.
- Firefighters and CHP officers reached the site within about 30 minutes, crews recovered the vehicle from the embankment, and Highway 9 was closed both directions for roughly three hours for evidence collection.
- CHP describes the incident as a loss-of-control crash and says the cause remains under investigation while asking anyone with information to contact its San Jose-area office at 408-961-0900.
- State Route 9 runs through the winding Santa Cruz Mountains where steep embankments raise the risk in night-time loss-of-control crashes and investigators may use scene reconstruction, vehicle exams, and toxicology to determine what happened.