Witness to high speed chase: He was flying (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

Two Eglin 96th Security Forces airmen who were being chased by military police as they left the base crashed late Friday night and were airlifted to a Pensacola hospital.

A taxi driver who saw the accident estimated the vehicles’ speed to be at least 100 mph as they traveled up Lewis Turner Boulevard toward Fort Walton Beach.

“He was flying,” said Nick Kagan, an airport shuttle driver who saw the crash and stopped to offer his help. “The guy had to have been maxed out, going 100, 105. He had military police chasing after him.”

Eglin officials confirmed that the driver was being pursued by members of the security force.

Rescue workers said the men wrapped a small pickup truck around a tree so tightly that it took more than three hours to extricate the victims.

• View photos from the scene of the wreck. »

Lewis Turner Boulevard was shut down for at least two hours while two medical helicopters waited to transport the men.

“That truck and them were wrapped around the tree together,” said Ocean City-Wright Fire Department Chief Billy Lord. “The vehicle was on its side, and the tree was in the cab.”

The airmen, whose identities have not been released, were taken by helicopter to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola.

One has been released and the other remains hospitalized in good condition, according to Lois Walsh, a spokeswoman for Eglin.

Kagan said he saw the two vehicles leave Eglin’s gate and speed up Lewis Turner. He said he was heading in the opposite direction but turned around to see what was going on. He drove up just in time to see the truck “flipping upside down and landing in the trees.”

“He tried turning (on Range Road), trying to lose the cops,” Kagan said. “It was definitely a chase.”

Kagan stopped and went toward the truck to see if he could help. A military police officer got out of a second vehicle that had just pulled up and stopped him.

“We don’t need anything from you,” Kagan said he was told. “We’ve got the scene taken care of. You just need to get off Air Force property and leave.”

Kagan said he told the officer he had witnessed the crash and was willing to make a statement, but he was told again to leave.

He called the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office about 10 minutes later and left his name and number in case they needed a statement from him, according to the call history record.

Walsh said she could not answer any questions about how fast the men were going and said she could not address whether it would be accurate to characterize it as a high-speed chase.

“That’s all part of the investigation,” she said. “I really can’t address that. We’re not going to go into details.”

She did say that the driver was exceeding the speed limit while driving on base, which is why security team members began their pursuit.

The accident report, which was given to the media by an anonymous source, said that the vehicle ran a red light after leaving the Eglin gate and quickly reached speeds in excess of 80 mph.

At that point, the pursuing officer radioed to say he was “decreasing to safe speeds once his pursuit speed reached 100+ mph.” A minute later, he radioed that “the vehicle was going to wreck if it maintained these speeds.”

The accident happened about 10 seconds later, according to the report.

The 911 call came in from Eglin Security just before midnight on Friday.

“Subject ran from Eglin Security and has crashed his vehicle at this location,” was the first dispatch.

Five minutes later, the security police called back to say that both occupants were alive, but the passenger had serious injuries.

He also said there was entrapment.

Lord said that while crews worked to extricate the men, paramedics squeezed into the truck as best as they could to provide medical care.

The extrication took more than three hours.

“They were all wrapped up in all that metal,” Lord said. “We had to be careful not to cut them.”

Even after the men were taken away by helicopter, it took crews on scene at least another hour to try to get the truck off of the tree.

The accident is under investigation by Eglin, rather than Florida Highway Patrol.

When asked if charges were being filed, Walsh said she wasn’t aware of any at this time and that it was probably too early.