Passenger, 19, Killed in Crash of Car, Van Near 241 Tollway

A Rancho Santa Margarita man was killed Tuesday when the car in which he was riding collided with a commuter van on Los Alisos Boulevard near the Foothill Transportation Corridor, authorities said.

The 19-year-old man, who was not identified pending notification of relatives, was holding a bag of marijuana at the time, police said.

“With the marijuana in the car, there’s a good likelihood that narcotics was a contributing factor,” said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Dept. “That is one thing we are definitely looking at.”

Two other men--including the driver of the car in which the drugs were found--were taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, Amormino said. The car’s 19-year-old driver “will probably be booked for manslaughter,” Amormino said.

He said the accident happened about 6 p.m. when the driver of a Nissan Maxima swerved out of the southbound lane of Los Alisos to avoid hitting a black Honda backing out of a driveway. Instead, the Maxima collided head-on with a commuter van traveling north, according to Amormino.

“He just lost control, went over the center divider and hit the oncoming northbound vehicle,” injuring its driver, Amormino said. There were no passengers in the van at the time, he said.

A second car then struck the van from behind, the sheriff’s spokesman said.

The road was expected to remain closed in both directions for several hours as investigators tried to reconstruct the accident, Amormino said.