Staff members from the Pinal County Medical Examiner's Office remove a body from the scene of the SUV crash, near the Tom Mix Monument between Oracle Junction and Florence. The Chevrolet Suburban that carried 19 illegal immigrants is on a tow truck. The victims had to be extracted from the flattened vehicle.

Jim Davis / Arizona Daily Star

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A sport utility vehicle carrying 19 illegal immigrants rolled over early Thursday north of Tucson, killing nine people and injuring the 10 other occupants.

It marks the deadliest vehicle crash involving illegal immigrants in the region in at least a decade, records show. And it brings the yearly total of illegal immigrants killed in crashes in the region to 20, doubling last year's total.

The single-vehicle crash occurred at about 7:45 a.m. on Arizona 79 just north of the Tom Mix Monument, 16 miles south of Florence, said Lt. Mike Corbin, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Corbin gave the following account:

A white Chevy Suburban with Sonora license plates was speeding northbound on Arizona 79 when it drifted off the right side of the road about 50 feet south of a small wash.

The SUV's wheels left the ground as it vaulted across the 25-foot wash, hitting the north bank of the wash and then flipping over.

The vehicle landed upside down. All 19 occupants were still inside when emergency personnel arrived at about 8 a.m. The SUV's engine block was shoved backward into the front passenger-seat area.

"Everyone had to be extracted," Corbin said.

An eyewitness driving north ahead of the SUV saw the crash through his rearview mirror, Corbin said.

"He was keeping an eye on them because they were coming up on him," Corbin said of the eyewitness. "He said they just drifted off the right side of the road."

The SUV was not being chased by law enforcement officers, he said.

"They were just in a hurry to get where they were going," Corbin said, estimating the SUV's speed at around 85 mph.

Nine occupants were pronounced dead at the scene.

The 10 injured were taken by helicopters and ambulances to Tucson- and Phoenix-area hospitals. All were expected to live, Corbin said.

Officer Carmen Figueroa, a DPS spokeswoman, said authorities were still trying to determine which of the crash victims was the driver, but they believe he survived.

Officials have not yet been able to positively identify the nationality and names of the deceased, but eight were men and one was a woman, said José Joaquín Chacón, the El Salvadoran consul general in Nogales, Ariz.

One of the dead appears to be from Guatemala, said Oscar Padilla, the Guatemalan consul general in Phoenix.

Chacón and Padilla are coordinating with officials from the Mexican Consulate in Tucson to help the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office identify the dead.

It appears that at least three of the injured are from Mexico, said Alejandro Ramos Cardoso, head of the Department of Protection at the Mexican Consulate in Tucson.

One of the injured was from El Salvador — an 18-year-old man who fractured his hip. He was in good condition, Chacón said.

University Medical Center in Tucson received three patients, said hospital spokeswoman Darci Slaten. Two were in critical condition, and a third was undergoing surgery on Thursday afternoon for a broken leg, she said.

Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix received four patients, hospital spokesman Craig Fischer said. The four adult men were all in good condition, he said.

Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix received two of the injured but wasn't releasing any information on their condition because of hospital policy, hospital spokesman Brett Heising said.

The DPS said at least one patient was taken to Scottsdale Healthcare Osborne Hospital.

Arizona 79 was closed in both directions until 12:30 p.m., Figueroa said.

Wrecks and rollovers of overloaded vehicles driven by smugglers are nothing new in Southern Arizona.

At least 74 people died from 2002 through 2004, data from the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center andcounty medical examiners in the region show. But that number decreased to 37 from 2005 to 2007, and none was recorded from Sept. 9, 2007, through March of this year.

In April, however, seven illegal immigrants were killed, and several others were critically injured in six serious crashes in Southern Arizona, making it the deadliest month for such crashes in nearly four years.

Two people died in May and another in June from injuries suffered in vehicle crashes, records from the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office show. Details of those crashes weren't available.

Then, on July 24, a minivan packed with illegal immigrants rolled on Interstate 10 east of Tucson, causing a series of collisions. A total of 18 people were injured, five of whom were hospitalized in critical condition.

A 26-year-old man from Hidalgo, Mexico, died on Aug. 2 in University Medical Center from injuries suffered in the crash, said the Department of Protection at the Mexican Consulate's Ramos.

The other three who were critically injured, two of whom were U.S. citizens, survived, Figueroa said.

There now have been 20 illegal immigrants who have died in vehicle crashes this year in the region, compared with nine in all of 2007, records show.

Twenty-one deaths occurred in 2006, seven in 2005 and 38 in 2004.

There have been several crashes in Southeastern Arizona in the past nine years that have resulted in the deaths of more than one illegal immigrant at a time, but none took a toll like Thursday's crash.

The only comparable crash occurred on Aug. 7, 2006, north of Yuma, when a man driving an SUV packed with illegal immigrants tried to avoid a Border Patrol checkpoint and led agents on a chase before trying to make a U-turn and overturning the vehicle, killing nine.

The worst day in Southeastern Arizona was Sept. 15, 2004, when eight people died in two separate crashes.