DMV reviewing driver's license status of teen in fatal O.C. crash

DMV reviewing driver’s license status of teen in fatal O.C. crash

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Cypress High School students, from left, Ramond Bada, 19; Josh Ong, 18; Alex Jamili, 17; Ian Song, 17; and Austin Milam, 17, mourn the loss of their friend, Irvine High School senior Robin Cabrera, 17. Robin was one of five teens killed in a fiery single-vehicle crash with a tree on a downhill stretch of Jamboree Road near Island Lagoon Drive on Memorial Day in Newport Beach. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Irvine High School students, from left, Gina Nguyen, 17; Delaram Danesh, 18; and Haider Al Hamawendi, 18, gather near a memorial set up at the site of a car wreck in which five teens were killed. Al Hamawendi’s younger brother, Nozad, was among the casualties. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Friends of the killed teenagers write messages on the tree at the crash site. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Flowers, candles, letters and photos are left at the crash site in Newport Beach. From left in the framed photographs are crash victims Robin Cabrera, Aurora “Christine” Cabrera and Cecilia D. Zamora. All three attended Irvine High School. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Crime scene investigators measure the girth of the tree into which the teenagers’ vehicle crashed. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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A police officer walks by a crumpled vehicle on Jamboree Road north of Island Lagoon Drive on Monday evening. (Kent Treptow / Special to the Daily Pilot)

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Police officers inspect the crumpled wreckage of an Infiniti in which five Irvine teenagers were killed. (Kent Treptow / Special to the Daily Pilot)

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Irvine High School classmates, from left, Shadi Masoud, 16, Aram Yaco, 17, and Kelly Dunkle, 17, crouch at the base of a pine tree in the median of Jamboree Road, where the crash occurred. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Kelly Dunkle, 17, cries as she talks about her friend Cecilia D. Zamora, who died in the crash. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Shadi Masoud, 16, holds bits of shattered glass and car parts that he found at the base of a tree where his friends died. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

By Lauren Williams and Jill Cowan

May 31, 2013 8:53 AM PT

The state Department of Motor Vehicles hopes to have more information in upcoming days about the driver’s license status of the teenager who was behind the wheel in a fiery Newport Beach crash that killed him and four passengers.

The DMV said Thursday that it will audit the driver’s license application filed by Abdulrahman Alyahyan, 17, of Irvine. He did not have even a learner’s permit when his Infiniti sedan crashed Monday on Jamboree Road.

But Alyahyan was cited April 20 for violating terms of a provisional license. Those violations included illegal modifications to his car.

The department is “following the trail of his application after he initially came in to apply,” said DMV spokesman Armando Botello.

Police say that on Memorial Day, Alyahyan was speeding south, perhaps as fast as 100 mph, in an Infiniti on Jamboree Road near Island Lagoon Drive when the car swerved out of control and struck a tree, shearing the vehicle in two. What was left caught fire.

Alyahyan and all his passengers were killed. Among them were two sisters who attended Irvine High School -- Robin A. Cabrera, 17, a 12th-grader, and Aurora C. Cabrera, 16, a 10th-grader. Also killed were Nozad Al Hamawendi, 17, and Cecilia D. Zamora, 17, both 11th-graders at Irvine High School.

The car was so fragmented that firefighters initially believed two vehicles had been involved.

The teens all died as a result of traumatic injuries, according to autopsy results released Thursday.

The single-car crash on Jamboree Road was so violent that the Infiniti in which they were riding was torn in half after slamming into a tree and four of the passengers were hurled onto the roadway, officials said.

Toxicology tests, performed on all five victims as a matter of procedure, won’t be available for several weeks. Friends said that the five were headed to the beach to celebrate the holiday and that a sixth student was to have joined them, but chose not to go at the last minute.

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