Three Dead, One Critical After BMW Crashes Off Mumbai Coastal Road Bridge
MUMBAI, September 20: Three people were killed, and another was critically injured after a BMW crashed through the edge of Mumbai’s Coastal Road and fell from an elevated section near Lotus Jetty early Sunday morning, police and civic officials said.
The accident happened at about 5:20 a.m. as the black BMW was travelling from Marine Drive towards Haji Ali. According to information from the Coastal Road Control Room, the driver allegedly lost control while travelling at high speed near Lotus Jetty, opposite Lala Lajpatrai College.
CCTV footage that emerged later showed the car travelling along the elevated road before striking the edge and plunging into an under-construction parking area below. The vehicle was severely damaged in the impact.
Three occupants died
All four occupants were taken to the civic-run Nair Hospital after the crash. Doctors declared three of them dead, while the fourth occupant was admitted to the trauma ward in critical condition, officials said.
Two of the deceased were identified as Shanay Gajjal, 21, and Dhirya Seth, 17. The third person, described by officials as a man of about 25, had not been identified in reports available by Sunday afternoon. The injured occupant was initially identified only as an approximately 20-year-old man.
Some later media reports have published different names and ages for the victims. Because those accounts conflict with the identification information attributed to Nair Hospital and the BMC, those details have not been treated as fact here.
CCTV shows the BMW leaving the elevated road
The CCTV footage provides a visual account of the final moments before the crash. It shows the BMW approaching the section of the Coastal Road at speed before going through the road edge and falling into the construction area.
Reports citing the Coastal Road Control Room say the vehicle lost control near Lotus Jetty. Police have begun examining the circumstances surrounding the crash, including the vehicle’s speed and how it came to leave the elevated roadway.
The precise sequence leading to the crash remains under investigation. While officials have cited overspeeding in the preliminary account, the investigation will determine the circumstances in greater detail.
Police investigation underway
Mumbai Police are investigating the accident. The condition of the surviving passenger was reported as critical in the latest reports reviewed for this article.
The crash comes less than three weeks after Mumbai Police registered a case following footage of several high-performance cars allegedly speeding together inside the Coastal Road tunnel. That incident took place on September 3, and police subsequently filed a case against unidentified drivers.
Police said that the earlier incident involved six to seven vehicles, including a Lamborghini, BMW M2 and BMW Z4, allegedly being driven at high speed in the southbound tunnel near Marine Drive. It is separate from Sunday’s crash, and there is no verified information establishing a connection between the two incidents.
What happens next
Investigators are expected to establish the exact circumstances of Sunday’s crash, including how the BMW lost control and whether any traffic or safety violations occurred.
For now, the confirmed toll is three dead and one critically injured. The identity of the third deceased occupant remained pending in the latest reports reviewed, while authorities continued their investigation into the crash.
