Man killed when vehicle flips ‘several times’ on Blue Ridge Parkway, national park says

A 23-year-old Virginia man died on the Blue Ridge Parkway after a vehicle went into a series of flips, according to the National Park Service.

The victim, Brayan Antonio Garcia Navas, was a passenger in the vehicle, NPS officials said in a news release.

It happened around 7 p.m. Saturday, April 30, near Milepost 1, which is southeast of Waynesboro, Virginia, officials said. The spot is near Rockfish Valley Parking Overlook.

Navas, who lived in Waynesboro, died at the scene, officials said.

“The preliminary investigation indicates the vehicle was traveling northbound when it left the roadway in a curve and traveled approximately 10 feet down an embankment before striking a large tree on the passenger side door,” officials said.

That caused “the vehicle to flip several times before landing on the passenger side,” officials said.

The driver survived and was taken to a hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, “with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries,” park officials said.

Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the accident, officials said.

The two-lane parkway runs 469 miles through the mountains of western Virginia and North Carolina and is known for offering broad views from ridge tops of the valleys below. The parkway had 15.9 million visitors in 2021, officials say.

Eight people died in crashes on the parkway last year, “a 17% increase from 2019, and a 13% decrease from 2020,” the National Park Service says.

This story was originally published May 3, 2022 at 10:10 AM with the headline "Man killed when vehicle flips ‘several times’ on Blue Ridge Parkway, national park says."