Classmates Mourn 3 Killed in Crash : Tragedy: San Clemente High School students try to cope with the deaths of three friends on a desolate stretch of road. Two others who were in the car are listed in good condition.

They were young and popular, quick to laugh and joke, five young men whose friendship had been cemented in the hallways and classrooms of San Clemente High School.

And when the accident happened, a jarring, ugly incident on a winding, desolate road east of town that claimed three of their lives, even those who did not know them accepted the tragedy as their own.

“If you didn’t know them, you heard their name,” said David DiLuccia, 17, a San Clemente High School junior and one of 500 students who sought school-sponsored counseling after the accident. “They were real popular. I’m real down about it, but the only way to feel better is by talking about it.”

Two days after the mishap, hundreds of students visited the spot on Avenida Pico where the three died and two other classmates were injured when the maroon 1988 Jaguar they were riding in careened off the road, went airborne and crashed.

Killed were two brothers, 17-year-old Marco Martinez and 16-year-old David Martinez, and Abel Aguilar Jr., 18. The Martinez brothers died at the scene; Aguilar died while being flown to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo.

Classmates said Aguilar was on the school football team and was recently nominated for the Big Man On Campus award--the high school’s equivalent of homecoming king.

Thomas Sheehan, 18, suffered two broken legs, while Arthur Andrew Felix, 17, of San Juan Capistrano was hospitalized with bruises and a concussion. Both were listed in good condition Monday at Mission Hospital.

Police said that they were not sure who was driving but that an investigation is under way.

Cesar Martinez, who lost two sons in the accident, said he had just given his sons permission to take their first overnight trip alone together--a Memorial Day weekend excursion to the desert.

“We had just talked about it,” the father of six said. “They had insisted that they were mature enough to take care of themselves. It would have been their first weekend alone.”

He recalled that when David received his driver’s license a week ago, he sat down with him to talk about the dangers of driving.

“But we didn’t allow him to drive yet,” he said.

The owner of a garment manufacturing firm in Los Angeles, Martinez said Marco had called him on Saturday morning to arrange to meet later in the day.

“That was the last I heard from him,” Martinez said. “Right now, (the tragedy) is made easier because everyone is around, family and friends. But my concern is what will happen Saturday, or Monday, when no one else is here?

“You cannot describe how it feels. I know I’m not the first father this has happened to. It will be quite some time before I realize that they’re really gone.”

At the high school and at the accident scene Monday, students mourned the loss and wondered, some aloud and others to themselves, what had happened. Some placed small bouquets of flowers at the site where the Jaguar left the road, an impromptu memorial to the three young men whose lives were lost on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

“We’re here to mourn,” said Adrian Soto, 17, a friend who was on the school wrestling team with the Martinez brothers.

Soto described them as gregarious jokesters who were inseparable, often going on dates and to parties together.

“We called them the ‘Doublemint Twins,’ ” he said. “They were great guys.”

Authorities said the tragic series of events started around noon Saturday after Sheehan and Felix were let out of a weekend detention class for truant and tardy students three hours early for excessive talking.

The pair ran across the Martinez brothers and Aguilar on campus and then encountered a 15-year-old student, who San Clemente police say had taken his father’s Jaguar and driven to the campus while his parents were out of town.

Sgt. Richard Downing said the five young men told the 15-year-old that “they just wanted to listen to the radio.”

The younger boy surrendered the keys, and the five drove off. Police said that by the time the car neared the intersection of Avenida La Pata, it was going 120 m.p.h. Investigators believe that the Jaguar veered off the pavement and hit a slight embankment, flew 72 feet in the air, spun upside down and cleared the intersection before landing on its roof.

The Martinez brothers were crushed in the back seat. Aguilar and Felix were thrown from the car, while Sheehan was discovered lying next to the vehicle. Downing said none of the five students were wearing seat belts.

He said it was not the first time that the desolate stretch of Avenida Pico had been the scene of a serious accident.

“It’s a remote area, and kids like to race their cars out there,” he said.

School officials and students said the mood was subdued on campus Monday morning after the school announced the deaths.

Loren O’Connor, a school psychologist, said many students experienced denial and anger but found a way to work through it by sharing their grief.

“Life is often short and brief,” he said. “I think the kids found that out today.”

Funeral services will be held for Aguilar at 10 a.m. Friday at Our Lady of Fatima Church in San Clemente. Services for the Martinez brothers are set for 1 p.m. Friday at Pacific View Memorial Park in Newport Beach.