California businessman Brian Anderson was riding in a Paris taxi that
night last August.
"I noticed one of the motorcycles going and attempting to pass on the left
side of the car. In between is like an abutment. Tthe beginning of what
eventually begins to become the tunnel.
I saw the motorcycle get over and begin like he was going through the passing movement....I did see motorcycles. Two, three people - one single and one with two people and the one with the two people was the one that actually tried to make, getting between the left hand side.
My attention was drawn away, the cab came to a sudden stop and I saw an object passing in front of us, crossing over. Sparks were flying, there was dust, there was a lot of noise and it happened very quickly and the car came down and rested on its tires. In that instant the horn went off."
An American tourist who was one of the first to reach the Princess's car described "the unimaginable delay" before anyone tried to free her from the wrecked Mercedes. Stanley Culbreath said: "It was at least 15 minutes before an ambulance arrived and the one policeman who was there made no attempt to help anyone who was in that wreck...."
Mr. Culbreath had just left the Eiffel Tower after a late-night sightseeing trip with two business companions, Clarence Williams and Mike Williams, when they drove to the entrance of the tunnel.... The front passenger door was thrown open and I could see another man (T.R-J). His face was pushed into the airbag.....His feet were out of the door and were just touching the floor.
Police finally forced Mr. Culbreath and his companions to leave the tunnel. He said: "It was well over 15 minutes after we stopped and there were no ambulances...It was as if those there had decided nothing could be done."
Gary Dean, said he saw the Mercedes just before it entered the tunnel. "It was travelling very fast and gave off a whooshing noise as it entered the tunnel as if the driver had hit the clutch but failed to change gear," he said.
Malo France, a taxi driver, passed through the eastbound lane of the tunnel with his fare moments after the accident occurred. He stopped briefly. "It was horrible," he said, "the worst accident I have ever seen. I made the sign of the cross over my heart. I thought, God save them, and God protect us from these types of accidents. In the front seat there was a man. I also saw a woman with blond hair. She was crying, very loudly. There were two different voices, one a man and one a woman."
Clifford G., an off-duty chauffeur, was on the Place de la Reine Astrid, a triangular park area near the tunnel entrance. His attention was drawn to the tunnel entrance by the loud whine of an automobile engine. He saw a Mercedes heading towards the tunnel at an estimated speed of more than 60 mph. "I also saw a big motorcycle pass. I can't tell you how many people were on it. The motorcycle was going fast... I would put the motorcycle at 30-40 meters behind the Mercedes."
He was later angered by the photographers. "I noticed four or five men around the wrecked Mercedes. It was obvious that the four occupants were wounded. There was blood, their bodies were sprawled every which way inside the Mercedes. Yet these men photographed the car and the wounded from every angle. Seeing this spectacle, I shouted,'That's all you can do instead of calling for help?'" he told investigators.
"I went to the passenger in front, who was trying to move," he said. "His mouth and tongue were ripped off. He had passed through the windshield and was trying to get out. I held up his head and told him not to move, to await help." He then noticed a blond head moving in the back seat, "...A voice told me, that's Lady Di," he said. "I understood then who it was. I repeated the same words to this young woman in English. Lady Di tried to speak. She opened her mouth to tell me something but no sound came out. She was bleeding from the forehead and tried to get up."
Thierry H. had been driving in the right lane of the express road near the Alexander III Bridge, approximately 800 meters before the Alma tunnel. He was "passed by a vehicle moving at a very high speed. I estimated its speed at about 75 mph to 80 mph. It was a powerful black car, I think a Mercedes... This car was clearly being pursued by several motorcycles, I would say four to six of them. Some were mounted by two riders. These motorcycles were tailing the vehicle and some tried to pull up alongside it."
Gary Hunter, a London lawyer, said he saw the escaping car from the window of his third-floor hotel room, less than 100 yards from the Alma tunnel.
Hunter said: "I was watching television when I heard the crash at exactly 12:25 a.m. There was an almighty crash followed by the sound of skidding, then another crash.
My initial thought was that there had been a head-on collision. I went to the window and saw people running towards the tunnel." Seconds later, Hunter said, he saw a car turning from the area by the tunnel exit and roaring down the Rue Jean Goujon, the street below.
"I heard a screeching of tires. I saw a small dark car turning the corner at the top of the road. I would say it was racing at 60-70 mph. "My own feeling is that these were people in a hurry not to be there.
I am confident that car was getting off the scene. It was obvious they were getting away from something and that they were in a hurry. It looked quite sinister. I can't recall the type of car, but it was a small dark vehicle. It could have been a Fiat Uno or a Renault."
Hunter said the car was being shadowed by another vehicle, a white Mercedes. He has given a detailed account of the crash to lawyers for Mohamed al-Fayed. He said he had been told his evidence had been passed to French police.
"As we entered the Alma tunnel, we heard a loud noise of screeching tires. At that moment, in the opposite lane, we saw a large car approaching at high speed. This car swerved to the left, then went back to the right and crashed into the wall with its horn blaring. I should note that in front of this car, there was another, smaller car. I think this vehicle was black, but I'm not sure. Behind the big car there was a large motorcycle. I can't be sure how many riders were on it."
Gaelle and her boyfriend, Benoit B., parked outside the tunnel and ran into the tunnel to flag down oncoming vehicles. She borrowed a cell phone and called the sapeurs-pompiers, the fire department's specialized emergency squad. The call was received at 12:26 a.m.
"It was a blue Mercedes and the airbag was on the passenger side, for sure, and the horn, right after the huge explosion there was a horn - for about two minutes and I think that was the driver up against the steering wheel."
"So I and another gentleman ran into the tunnel to see if we could help anybody get out of the car and a gentleman at the car, at the scene, was starting to run towards us out of the tunnel like the car was about to explode, so we turned and ran out of the tunnel...... 'Bout fifteen seconds later we turned around...er the paparazzi snapping off pictures..".
A wire service report said:
"Saturday night, American tourists Tom Richardson and Joanna Luz were among
the first people on the scene. They told CNN they were walking nearby when
they heard the crash and ran into the tunnel. The car Diana was in ``looked
like it hit a wall,'' said Richardson, of San Diego. ``There was smoke. I
think the car hit a wall. A man started running towards us telling us to
go.'' "
Another wire service report:
"Two American witnesses, Joanna Luz and Tom Richardson, told CNN television
news they heard a noise ``like an explosion'' as they were walking along
the Seine River. They ran into the tunnel to offer assistance when they saw
someone jump out from the car, which had been traveling at about 60 mph.
Within five seconds, they said, a photographer arrived. Both front air bags
were deployed. The police took from five to seven minutes to arrive and the
ambulance 15 minutes, they said."
The princess and Fayed were motionless in the back seat of the crushed vehicle, witness Michael Solomon, an American tourist, said. "(Diana) was just unconscious," he said. "When I walked up to the car, I was extremely nervous. I had heard an explosion, and the first thing that came to my mind was, 'This was a bomb, a terrorist attack'."
"Well, we was coming from the Eiffel Tower, and we were coming down, he was coming one way and we were coming down the hill, and the traffic, there was a little traffic so it was going slow there because the accident had just happened and when we got there we seen either the car had flipped over... and it looked like it had hit another car; looked like it had evidently hit the wall or something," he said.
Daily Mirror: "The whereabouts of a British secretary driving in the tunnel at the time of Diana's crash were also shrouded in mystery yesterday. London-born Brenda Wells, 40, told police how she was forced off the road by a motorbike following Diana's Mercedes at high speed. Ms. Wells also saw a dark-coloured car -possibly the Fiat Uno which has now become the focal point of the French probe into the crash. In her statement she claims:
'After a party with my friends, I was returning to my home. A motorbike with two men forced me off the road. It was following a big car. Afterwards in the tunnel there were very strong lights like flashes. After that, a black car arrived. The big car had come off the road. I stopped and five or six motorbikes arrived and started taking photographs. They were crying 'It's Diana.'.' Brenda's evidence calls into question initial claims that pursuing paparazzi were to blame. She makes the first mention of photographers after the accident when 'five or six' paparazzi arrived and took pictures. But last night, despite extensive inquiries in the Paris suburb of Champignay sur Marne where she told police she lived, Brenda could not be located."
PARIS/WIESBADEN, Sept. 9 (EIRNS)--There are two separate witnesses, both of whom choose to remain anonymous, who are quoted by the newspaper Journal du Dimanche, saying that a car driving IN FRONT OF, the Mercedes S280, forced the Mercedes to start braking, as it entered the tunnel.
The first witness says: ``The Mercedes was driving on the right hand, shortly before the entry of the tunnel, preceded by a dark-colored automobile, of which make I cannot say. This car clearly was attempting to force the Mercedes to brake.
The driver of the Mercedes veered into the left-hand lane, and then entered the tunnel.'' The witness said that what drew his attention to the scene, was the loud sound of the Mercedes' gears being suddenly lowered.
The other witness, who was walking along the riverside, said he was surprised by the ``sound of a motor humming very loudly.'' He said he saw a Mercedes ``travelling behind another automobile. I believe that the reason the Mercedes accelerated so suddenly, was to try to veer into the left lane, and pass that car.''
This raises the possibility, or perhaps probability, that Mercedes driver Henri Paul thought, or was convinced, that that automobile was driven by people who had the intent of killing his passengers, and therefore, decided to pass that car at any cost, by suddenly massively accelerating, from the 100 kilometers per hour he was driving just before the tunnel, to the 150 kph in the tunnel. Also noteworthy, is the Journal du Dimanche report, that there are 16 meters of skid marks left by the Mercedes' tires.
Police experts say they are unable, at the present time, to attribute a cause to the sudden braking.
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