PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — The woman charged in connection with a multi-vehicle crash on I-95 in Philadelphia that killed two people in March has turned herself in.

According to police, she was under the influence of alcohol and driving a hands-free car when the accident happened.

Dimple Patel, a 23-year-old medical student from Philadelphia, was charged on August 28 with driving under the influence, tampering with evidence, reckless driving, vehicular manslaughter and other related charges.

She surrendered to state police on Tuesday morning.

The accident happened around 3:15 a.m. on March 3.

According to police, a red Prius was disabled on the left shoulder and was parked slightly in the left lane.

According to authorities, a gray Hyundai Elantra was driving directly behind the Prius.

Investigators suspect the driver of the Hyundai, identified as Tolobek Esenbekov, was helping the driver of the Prius, Aktilek Baktybekov.

According to police, Baktybekov was standing in the roadway in front of the Elantra and Esenbekov got out of the car when the accident happened.

Then Patel, who was driving a yellow 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E, allegedly hit the back of the Hyundai.

Investigators said she was driving between 71 and 72 mph (115 and 116 km/h) when it happened and was using the vehicle’s BlueCruise hands-free driving feature and adaptive cruise control systems.

The collision caused four cars to collide, with Baktybekov and Esenbekov both being hit.

Both Baktybekov and Esenbekov later died of their injuries.

In a statement Tuesday, the Pennsylvania State Police said drivers using advanced technologies should be prepared to regain control at all times.

“No partially automated vehicle technology should ever be left alone to perform the driving tasks necessary to safely navigate the Commonwealth’s roadways,” the agency said.

Ford’s Blue Cruise system lets drivers take their hands off the wheel while the system handles steering, braking and acceleration on highways. The company says the system is not fully autonomous and that it monitors drivers to ensure they’re paying attention to the road.

Defense attorney Zak Goldstein said he had not seen the criminal complaint or reports on the crash and called the deaths a tragedy. However, he noted that Pennsylvania law on DUI-related homicides generally requires that “the DUI caused the homicide.”

“If it is indeed a malfunction of a self-driving car or a driving system, there may not be a DUI manslaughter charge even if the driver is intoxicated,” he said, adding that he has not seen any case law on this in Pennsylvania.

Ford said it was cooperating with state police, the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in investigating the crash.

When NHTSA opened an investigation into the crash in Philadelphia and another crash in San Antonio involving Blue Cruise, the agency noted that both crashes occurred on freeways with lights on at night and that Blue Cruise was in use shortly before the crashes.

The agency says it is investigating how Blue Cruise performs driving tasks and how its camera-based driver monitoring system works.

Both the NHTSA and NTSB have investigated several previous accidents involving partially automated driving systems.

In April, NHTSA began investigating whether Tesla’s solution to a December recall of more than 2 million vehicles equipped with the company’s partially automated Autopilot system had fixed the problem. The recall was issued because the driver monitoring system was inadequate and posed a safety risk.

According to NHTSA, between January 2018 and August 2023, there were 956 accidents involving Autopilot and Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” systems, resulting in 29 deaths.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.