Two teenage girls are dead, and a third is seriously hurt after a crash in Fairfax Station, Virginia, authorities say.
A 2019 Lexus 1S350 crashed in the 7400 block of Lee Chapel Road in the Fairfax Station area about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Fairfax County police said.
Investigators believe the Lexus was going north on the two-lane road, when the driver lost control on a hill, drove off the road and flipped onto its roof.
Two of the teens died at the scene. First responders got the third girl out of the Lexus and took her to a hospital, police said. She has critical injuries, according to police.
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Ariana Haftsavar, 16, was one of the two teens killed, her family confirmed to News4. She was a kind, caring girl who always looked out for younger kids and dreamed of being a lawyer.
Ariana's family said she was a passenger in the car and was headed home from SAT class.
The family was getting ready for dinner and had tracked Ariana's location with an app while they waited for her to get home. They said they knew something was wrong when the location stopped on Lee Chapel Road, four miles away from their residence.
Ariana's family rushed over, and that’s when they saw the crash.
"At that point I broke down, I fell down on the ground, I said I want to go and see her, officer wouldn’t let me," her father, Bahman Haftsavar, said. "I pushed him and said, 'This is my world. She’s my daughter. She’s my everything.'"
Haftsavar said Ariana was a wonderful person, and they don't know how they're going to live without her.
"She was my only daughter, and I was trying to teach her the best I could, raise her the best I could," he said. "She had a life to live, but that life was cut short. She’s not there any more."
Police have not released the identifies of the victims, and said Virginia law prevents them from naming the victims without parental consent.
"It’s a horrible, horrible traffic crash and, you know, our detectives continue to investigate,” Fairfax County Police Second Lt. James Curry said.
Residents who live along Lee Chapel Road told News4 they’ve been sounding the alarm about the dangers of the road for years.
Along the same stretch in 2015, another teen girl lost control of her car and died in a three-car crash.
A memorial cross is also visible when driving on the narrow, hilly and windy road.
“We’ve had to caution like taxi drivers to slow down because all of a sudden, it’s going to drop on you,” resident Ed Kringer said.
“If you’re going fast or if it’s dark out, it's, it can be a pretty scary experience," resident Ted Johnson said.
Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity said his office has tried twice to widen Lee Chapel Road. Once in 2015 and again in 2017, but both times they could not get the funding.
“This is a road that we hear an awful lot about,” Herrity said.
He hopes to try again soon but said it's not the only road that needs to be fixed.
“As we’ve urbanized, we’ve got increased traffic on roads that weren’t originally designed to handle it,” Herrity said.
Data shows the number of crashes on Lee Chapel Road have decreased over the past six years. There were 30 crashes on the road in 2017 and 19 crashes in 2021. The numbers for 2022 are not yet complete.
Lee Chapel Road was closed for hours between Route 123 and the Fairfax County Parkway while investigators were at the scene. It reopened at about 5 a.m. Wednesday.
The Lexus was the only car involved in the crash, police said.
Police believe speed was a factor. They do not believe alcohol was.
This is a developing story. Stay with News4 for more updates.
