7 family members die as minivan crashes into Bronx Zoo.

[Marv]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...Bronx-Zoo.html

A man who lost his wife, daughter and five other family members in a car crash after the family's minivan flipped over a Bronx freeway has spoken out about his shock since the tragedy.

Juan Gonzalez discovered yesterday his wife and 10-year-old daughter were among those killed when she drove off an overpass of the Bronx River Parkway, plummeting 59ft into a remote section of New York's Bronx Zoo.

Forty-five-year-old Maria Gonzalez died instantly in the crash, which claimed the lives of her parents, Jacob Nunez, 85, and Ana Julia Martinez, 81; her sister Maria Nunez, 39'; her 10-year-old daughter Jocelyn Gonzalez; and nieces Niely and Marly Rosario, ages seven and three.
[...]

The family of seven died after their minivan plummeted 59ft from the Bronx River Parkway.

Police say Mrs Gonzalez was at the wheel of a white 2004 Honda Pilot when it vaulted off an overpass.

A police source told MailOnline all seven of the victims had to be extracted from the crashed vehicle and were pronounced dead at the scene.

According to a police report, the van was headed south Sunday afternoon around 12:30pm on the Bronx River Parkway, a highway in the north of the city.

The vehicle then bounced off the median, crossed all southbound lanes over to the guardrail and fell 59ft.

The car landed in a heavily-overgrown area of the Zoo grounds, which made the recovery difficult for emergency workers.

No criminality is suspected.
[...]

The crash took place in a non-public area of the south eastern portion of the Zoo.

It's not clear what caused the van to go out of control, but police are speculating that the car was going very fast- with the exact speed still unknown

Maria Gonzalez, 45, pictured standing behind her son, Jonel, at his high school graduation; with her then-nine-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, middle foreground

[Eccentric Lady]

What the hell....literally.

Besides going too fast, wonder if cell phone usage was also happening or some other distraction?

I cringe inside about that disastrous combination and my heart goes out to Mr. Gonzalez.

Damn, and to make matters worse it is a very peculiar accident to boot. Falling into a zoo? Crud monkeys!

[TheMorningStar]

The white Honda Pilot then ricocheted across all three southbound lanes and went airborne, flying over the right-hand guardrail before flipping and plummeting into the heavily wooded area below, which is closed to zoo visitors, officials said.
“They flew right over the guardrail, didn’t even touch it,” a law-enforcement source said.

An FDNY source at the scene said, “It [was] terrible, just carnage. The passengers didn’t stand a chance.”
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly described how the vehicle landed on its roof with its passengers trapped inside, all wearing their seat belts.
They were killed instantly.
“We believe that the driver . . . struck the Jersey barrier [the median], and in reacting and trying to correct, turned right, went through the barrier and dropped,” Kelly said.
Police sources shot down reports of a possible blown tire, saying there was no evidence of one. Investigators are looking at the vehicle’s speed and weight as factors in the crash.
Fina Gonzalez’s family added that she had no known medical conditions.

Lots of details here:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/b...FHFNIKIuO69K/0