Driver, 7, younger brother die in car crash after taking grandparents' car

Two brothers, ages 6 and 7, were killed in Missouri on Friday when the car the 7-year-old was driving crashed and caught fire.

A spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol, Sgt. Andy Bell, said the boys left their grandparents’ home in a car and drove through a field and then onto a county road in an unincorporated area east of Kansas City. The car, a 2007 Buick LaCrosse, belonged to their grandparents, Bell said.

“It’s pretty unique, to say the least, and devastating,” Bell said.

The patrol’s report on the crash said the car became airborne more than once, struck a guardrail and a guy-wire, overturned and struck a tree and eventually landed on its roof and caught fire.

The boys were pronounced dead at the scene. Their names have not been released.

According to the report, the crash occurred about 4:20 p.m.

“We believe that speed had to have been a contributing factor for them to have traveled, flipped, et cetera,” Bell said.

The car was traveling east when it ran off East Blue Mills Road, the report states.

The Highway Patrol and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department are investigating. Bell said the sheriff’s office was looking into how the boys came to have possession of the car. A sheriff’s spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment Monday.

source: nbcnews.com