Pursuit ends in unreal crash: Airborne car slams into house

CRASH LANDING: This car with five people in it took out a fence and a tree before crashing into a house below the road level. PHOTOS/LINDY LAIRD

A car involved in a police chase and being driven by a man who had allegedly been drinking crashed through a fence, became airborne, clipped a garage roof and landed against the wall of a bedroom in which an 82-year old woman was asleep.

Five people were in the car that crashed into the unit below road level on the corner of Waiatawa and Whareora Rds at 3am yesterday. They were taken to Whangarei Hospital but it is understood only one was admitted.

The elderly resident was shaken but unhurt. The woman, who did not want to be named, said she had been fast asleep and got "a dreadful fright" when the car slammed into her house.

Thirty minutes earlier the car had allegedly been involved in a police pursuit through central Whangarei which police had called off for safety reasons.

Neighbours who lived further down the road said they were woken by a screech followed by a loud "crunch", then heard lots of yelling.

A long skid mark and a broken concrete curb show the trajectory of the car, which took out a section of barrier fence before becoming airborne. At one point it hit and snapped a tree in two.

A supervisor with Ensura Building Services said it appeared the tree had broken the car's flight.

If it had not, the vehicle might have landed on the bedroom roof and through on to the woman inside.

As it was, the car clipped the corner of the garage then crashed onto the ground before coming hard up against the bedroom's exterior wall.

He said he was amazed no one was killed and described it as one of the closest calls he had seen.

Crowds gathered on the street above the scene yesterday afternoon to watch the car being winched by crane up the steep, 30m bank and put on to a tow trailer.

Police were unable to provide details of charges the driver was facing.