DMV ‘following trail’ of teen crash victim’s license application

The state Department of Motor Vehicles hopes to have more information in upcoming days about the driver’s license status of the teenager who was behind the wheel in a fiery Newport Beach crash that killed him and four other young passengers.

The DMV said it will audit the driver’s license application filed by Abdulrahman Alyahyan, 17, of Irvine. He did not have even a learner’s permit when his Infiniti sedan crashed May 27 on Jamboree Road.

But Alyahyan was cited April 20 for violating terms of a provisional license. Those violations included illegal modifications to his car.

The department is “following the trail of his application after he initially came in to apply,” said DMV spokesman Armando Botello.

Police say that on Memorial Day, Alyahyan was speeding south, perhaps as fast as 100 mph, in an Infiniti on Jamboree Road near Island Lagoon Drive when the car swerved out of control and struck a tree, shearing the vehicle in two. What was left caught fire.

Alyahyan and all his passengers were killed. Among them were two sisters who attended Irvine High School — Robin A. Cabrera, 17, a 12th-grader, and Aurora C. Cabrera, 16, a 10th-grader. Also killed were Nozad Al Hamawendi, 17, and Cecilia D. Zamora, 17, both 11th-graders at Irvine High School.

The car was so fragmented that firefighters initially believed two vehicles had been involved.

The teens all died as a result of traumatic injuries, according to autopsy results released Thursday.

The crash on Jamboree Road was so violent that four of the passengers were hurled onto the road, officials said.

Results of toxicology tests, performed on all five victims as a matter of procedure, won’t be available for several weeks. Friends said that the five were headed to the beach to celebrate the holiday and that a sixth student was to have joined them but chose not to go at the last minute.

lauren.williams@latimes.com

jill.cowan@latimes.com