The coroner’s inquiry into the deaths of the five men inside a BMW that crashed at Tanjong Pagar last year continues, which hogged the headlines in Singapore last year for weeks.
The driver, Jonathan Long Junwei; and his four passengers, Eugene Yap Zheng Min, Elvin Tan Yong Hao, Teo Qi Xiang and Gary Wong Hong Chieh, all perished in the accident.
Present at the hearing were Long’s father, Yap’s brother and Wong’s sister.
Events leading up to the crash
Senior staff sergeant Mohd Firdaus Sulaiman said that the 5 men were at a house gathering in Ang Mo Kio for Chinese New Year celebrations.
They had drank alcohol before deciding to have supper as Tanjong Pagar because they commonly hang out there.
All the eateries in the area were closed, so they then decided to go to Hong Jjajang restaurant, with was owned by Park Se Jin, who had the key to the restaurant.
Park opened the restaurant and the group then went in and continued to drink alcohol. Present at the restaurant were three other women, including Raybe Oh and Phoo Yi Lin.
Phoo was the one who took a video of the accident that was later admitted into evidence, while Oh was seen in viral videos running into the fire to help the people in the burning car.
The group then decided to leave at about 4am as Long wanted to show his new car to his friends, and the group was “excited” about it.
Insisted on seeing who could drive faster
They then followed Long and got into his car, and the car was then driven on three rounds, with the group taking turns to drive it each time.
The car finished the first three rounds with no incidents, with Yap driving on the first round, Park on the 2nd round and Phoo on the 3rd round.
Long, who was outside watching the first three rounds, was reportedly very persuasive and “insisted” on competing to see who was faster.
Long then took the wheel on the fourth round, before the ultimately crashed and killed them all.
As reported yesterday, Long was found with 86mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood, above the legal limit of 80mg, indicating that he was drink driving.
He was also going at 148km/hr at an area with a speed limit of 50km/hr.