NEW YORK — An out-of-control SUV careered across several lanes of traffic on a highway overpass Sunday, then plunged more than 50 feet off the side of the road and landed in a ravine on the grounds of the nation’s largest city zoo, killing all seven people aboard, including three children, authorities said.
The Honda Pilot apparently flipped over a 4-foot-high iron fence before landing upside down on Bronx Zoo property. The cause of the crash was unclear, and police said they didn’t yet know how fast the vehicle was traveling. A city official said the guardrail’s height would be one of the safety issues investigated.
The victims were three girls, ages 3, 5 and 10, an 85-year-old man and three women, ages 81, 45 and 39, police said. The 45-year-old woman was driving.
The sport utility vehicle was headed south on the highway that cuts through a working-class neighborhood when it bounced off the median, crossed all southbound lanes and hit the guardrail, police said.
It landed in a wooded area on the edge of zoo property that is closed to the public and far from any animal exhibits, said zoo spokeswoman Mary Dixon. The vehicle lay mangled hours later, its right doors ripped off and strewn amid the trees along with items from the car.
The accident was the second in the past year in which a vehicle fell off the same stretch of parkway. Last June, the driver of an SUV heading north lost control and the SUV hit a divider, bounced through two lanes of traffic and fell 20 feet over a guardrail. The two people in the SUV were injured.
