A 29-year-old man was killed and a woman injured in a violent, high-speed, single-vehicle crash into a pole at the end of a police pursuit Tuesday morning in Newport Beach.
The crash occurred near 23rd Street and Balboa Boulevard, according to the California Highway Patrol.
“Shortly after 1 a.m. there was a pursuit that was initiated by Newport Beach (police), not sure what caused that pursuit but it went southbound on Balboa (Boulevard),” CHP Officer Florentino Olivera told NBC4. “(Officers) lost (the vehicle) due to the high rate of speed. The vehicle got turned around, (the driver) saw there was no way out from the peninsula. (The driver) picked up again going northbound and shortly after that is when he crashed.”
Video from the scene showed the vehicle split in half and debris spread across lanes of the road. A witness told a news photographer the vehicle’s engine was ejected and struck a nearby parked SUV.
Florentino said the engine landed about 100 feet from the crash scene and one of the vehicle’s tire was found about 300 feet away.
The man who was driving the vehicle was pronounced dead at the scene. The woman in the passenger seat was wearing her seatbelt and freed from the wreckage by authorities and taken to a hospital in unknown condition, Florentino said.
The CHP closed several streets in the area for an investigation into the crash. The closures are:
— Balboa Boulevard between 22nd and 24th streets;
— 23rd Street, just west of Oceanfront;
— Oceanfront between 21st and 23rd streets;
— 22nd and 24th streets in both directions.