A Moray family remain in hospital today after a horror smash on one of the north-east’s main trunk roads.
The accident happened in the early hours of Friday on the A96 Aberdeen to Inverness road at the Oyne Fork near Pitcaple.
One child and his mother were airlifted to hospital with serious injuries after the accident.
They and the father had to be cut free from the wreckage of the car, which had careered off the road and rolled on its side down an embankment.
Two other boys had managed to get themselves out of the green Audi 80 before emergency services arrived at the scene of the smash, at the Oyne Fork, on the A96 Aberdeen to Inverness road.
Friends said the family were on their way to the airport to fly off for a two-week holiday in Spain when they collided with a white Volkswagen Transporter van at 3.30am.
Last night police confirmed that the family were from Dufftown and said their respective conditions remained unchanged.
A spokesman added that the children’s father was in a “serious, but stable” condition.
Huntly councillor Moira Ingleby said she was “saddened” to hear about the accident.
“This is just a tragic thing to happen and my thoughts are with the family and their friends at this terribly difficult time,” she added.