6 killed in head-on car crash near Beit Shemesh

Six people were killed Friday afternoon as two cars collided head-on near Beit Shemesh.

Three other passengers who were moderately injured in the crash were evacuated by a Magen David Adom emergency team to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.

'One of the worst I've seen' (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Police received word of the accident at approximately 5 pm. An initial investigation revealed that the two cars collided on Route 38, near Beit Shemesh. Six people – three from each car – were killed. According to the investigation the driver of one of the cars, a BMW, lost control of it, apparently because he was speeding. It is estimated that driver crashed into a Subaru travelling in the opposite direction as he was trying to regain control of the car.   

Investigators said three of the victims were not wearing seatbelts at the time of the accident.

Firefighter Erez Bar-Sheshet told Ynet, "A number of passengers were trapped in each car, and it took us a half-hour to pull them out the vehicles, after they had been crushed by the engine."

Three of the victims were in their 20s, while the passengers who were killed in the second car were in their 50s. All six were pronounced dead at the scene.

Police are looking into the possibility that the youngsters were intoxicated. The father of one of the hospitalized youngsters dismissed the suspicions, saying "these kids do not drink; they were on vacation and all they did was go to the pool."