Five young people killed in New York state car crash

A car veered off a highway into a tree and caught fire early on Sunday outside of New York City in suburban Scarsdale, killing five of the six young people who were in the vehicle, police said.

The dead - four males and a female - ranged in age from 8 to 17 and included a 16-year-old boy who was believed to be driving when the crash occurred at about 12:20 am on the Hutchinson River Parkway in Westchester County, according to police.

The lone survivor, a 9-year-old boy who apparently was riding in the car's hatchback-cargo compartment, escaped from the rear of the automobile and was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

No other vehicles were involved in the wreck, and the full circumstances of the crash remain under investigation, the Westchester County Police Department said in a statement.

The deceased were all from the state of Connecticut, according to police.

The New York Times reported that all six of the youths were residents of Derby, Connecticut, a working-class town west of New Haven.

According to the Times, the section of the Hutchinson River Parkway near the exit where Sunday's accident occurred was ranked by a 2015 local news investigation as one of New York's most dangerous stretches of roadway.