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Three male teenagers killed after their car crashed during a police pursuit in Auckland early today are estimated to have been travelling at speeds of up to 190kph.
Two died instantly after the car struck a barrier at the St Lukes off-ramp of the Northwestern Motorway, became airborne, hit a pine tree and somersaulted down a gully.
The third died at scene shortly after.
They are understood to be the first fatalities on New Zealand roads since the Christmas-New Year period began at 4pm on Friday.
Police said they believed they knew the identity of the 16-year-old driver.
They were still trying to identify his two passengers, who were both thought to be under 20.
Inspector John Mitchell said a patrol car had stopped the vehicle in downtown Auckland about 4am after a person was spotted standing up through the sun roof.
He said at least two of the occupants were seen to be passing a container of wine from a wine-box between them and taking drinks from it.
The officer, who spoke to the driver, got as far as getting his first name before the driver accelerated away.
Police gave chase through to the Northwestern Motorway.
On the motorway, the headlights of the vehicle being pursued went off.
Mr Mitchell said the patrol car, which was doing around 140kph, found itself about 500m behind and dropping back.
When the front vehicle reached the offramp, the patrol car had lost sight of it.
"He was going quite a bit faster," Mr Mitchell said.
"Indications are that it could have been as fast as 190 or so at the time he lost control, but we won't know that for sure for a few days."
As the vehicle came off the off-ramp, it clipped the right hand barrier and ricocheted through a chain-mail fence, he said.
The force of the impact when the car hit the pine was such that the tree was uprooted.
The officers in the police car did not see the crash because the of the distance they were behind.
When they arrived at the scene, "they saw a big cloud of dirt and dust up by the trees and they stopped and ran over".
Two of the occupants were already dead and the third died as they were trying to get him out of the car.
Mr Mitchell said the Police Complaints Authority had begun an inquiry into the incident.
- NZPA
