The California Highway Patrol is investigating a motorcycle crash on U.S. Highway 101 in Fortuna on Sunday afternoon that left two people dead.
According to a press release from the CHP, a 41-year-old Fortuna man was driving a 2007 Harley Davidson Road King northbound south of Main Street with a group of motorcyclists when, for unknown reasons, he lost control of the bike, causing he and his passenger to be ejected. When emergency personnel responded to reports of the crash shortly after noon, they pronounced the driver dead at the scene and transported his 46-year-old female passenger with major injuries to St. Joseph Hospital, where she later died.
The identities of both the driver and passenger are being withheld currently until their families can be notified of their deaths.
The highway was closed for about two hours as officers investigated the crash, but it is currently unknown “what factors may have contributed to its cause,” the release states.
The CHP asks anyone with information about the accident to contact it at (707) 822-5981 or Humboldt_Area@chp.ca.gov. Find the full accident report here.
This article appears in ‘Powerful’.
I was about 100 yeard back so I didn’t see clearly what had happened, but there were a group of us who got stuck at a red light on Fortuna Blvd. When we got to the highway we were trying to catch up with the pack. What apears to have happened is that the rider did not notice how slow the pack was going until too late and locked up his brakes. The bike slid and through the passenger and then flipped.