At around 10:30 on Friday night, a Honda Accord carrying a group of five friends celebrating a 19th birthday spun off a wet road, crashed through a chain-link fence, and plunged into Astoria’s Steinway Creek. The 20-year-old driver, Andrew Gramm, escaped the car and called for help, but emergency responders arrived too late to save his passengers — 21-year-old, Darius Fletcher, 19-year-old Jada Monique Butts, 19-year-old Crystal Gravely, and 20-year-old Jaleel Furtado — who were trapped in the submerged vehicle for around a half hour. Rescue divers broke the Accord’s windows and rushed all four victims to nearby hospital in critical condition, but none survived. The New York Post reports that Gramm was not drunk, though investigators are looking into whether he was speeding: It appears that a botched U-turn is what led to the crash.
