Two men are dead and a woman is seriously injured after a wrong-way crash late Tuesday that shut down part of the Capital Beltway in Tysons, Virginia, police said.
Patrick J.C. Mullins, 32, of Catlett, Virginia, and Kaan T. Karabekir, 28, of Bethesda, Maryland, were killed, Virginia State Police said in an update Wednesday.
A Mazda was traveling south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 495 about 10:15 p.m. and struck a Buick Encore head-on, Virginia State Police said.
The crash caused the Buick to catch fire, police said.
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Both drivers died at the scene, police said.
A woman passenger in the Buick suffered life-threatening injuries and burns, police said. She was taken to Inova Fairfax Medical Campus and then MedStar Washington Hospital Center, police said.
Karabekir was driving the Mazda and caused the crash, according to police. It wasn't immediately clear why he was driving the wrong way. The investigation is ongoing.
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None of the three people were wearing seatbelts, police said.
All lanes of the Inner Loop just after Leesburg Pike were shut down for hours while authorities investigated. Lanes reopened early Wednesday.
CORRECTION (May 19, 2022, 3:40 p.m. ET): Virginia State Police said in an update that Karabekir, the driver of the Mazda, caused the crash. The department said earlier that Mullins was the Mazda driver.
