Video captures a 3-car crash as a SpaceX rocket flies over California

A screenshot of a freeway crash that happened during a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch.YouTube/Mark Sales

• Dashcam video captured a three-car crash as a SpaceX rocket was flying over Southern California.
• Cars appeared to be slowing down to watch the Falcon 9 rocket that launched on Friday night.
• That SpaceX mission captivated people all over the region, and even prompted some emergency calls from people who were unaware of the scheduled launch.

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Three cars collided on a Southern California freeway as a SpaceX rocket soared over the region Friday night. Video from a dashboard camera captured the crash, which happened on the westbound Interstate 10 in the city of Banning, about 90 miles east of Los Angeles.

A man and some children inside the vehicle that captured the video can be heard talking about the rocket when traffic began to slow down. A white Toyota Corolla in the left lane then gets rear-ended by a minivan, pushing that Corolla into a Toyota RAV4 SUV.

SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying a collection of 10 satellites into low-Earth orbit. The payload was destined for a constellation of communications satellites owned by Iridium Communications. SpaceX conducted a similar launch for the same company in June.

The launch caused widespread confusion in Southern California and even prompted some emergency calls from people who were unaware of the scheduled launch.

Watch the crash below (starting at the 1:13 mark):