The five teenage boys killed when a car travelling the wrong way along the M9 motorway in County Kildare crashed head-on into a family vehicle have been named. They have been named in reports as Kamil Pustkowski, Joey Carthy, Alex McCarthy, Jack Kennedy and Jeremy O’Brien, aged between 15 and 18.
The collision happened on the M9 between Junctions 3 and 4 near Athy during the early hours of Sunday, August 16. The teenagers were travelling in a BMW which was heading southbound on the northbound carriageway when it collided head-on with a Hyundai carrying a family who were travelling towards Dublin Airport.
All five teenagers in the BMW died. Four occupants of the Hyundai — three women and a seven-year-old boy — suffered critical or serious injuries and were taken to hospital.
The crash scene was described as extremely complex, with emergency services remaining on the motorway for many hours while forensic examinations and recovery work were carried out. Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly previously said the occupants of the second car had been “travelling innocently” when they were struck by a vehicle being driven the wrong way down the motorway.
He also warned about the dangers of deliberately driving against motorway traffic, including incidents in which reckless behaviour may be carried out in pursuit of attention on social media. There have been reports linking the teenagers to a group associated with car theft and dangerous driving videos online.
However, those claims, along with reports that the BMW had been stolen and that the journey was specifically being undertaken for social-media content, have not been independently confirmed by Gardaí in information available to UKNIP. The circumstances immediately before the collision are now the subject of detailed investigation.
The incident has also been referred to Fiosrú, the Office of the Police Ombudsman, which is conducting an independent investigation because of reported Garda contact with the vehicle before the fatal crash. Post-mortem examinations are being carried out following the deaths of the five teenagers.
Meanwhile, attention remains focused on the four people travelling in the Hyundai who survived the devastating collision and continue to receive hospital treatment. Gardaí have appealed for anyone who travelled on the M9 between 2am and 3am on Sunday morning, particularly motorists with dashcam footage, to come forward.
