FIVE teenage friends died when the car in which they were travelling was involved in a head-on collision late on Thursday night.

The youngsters, aged 17 and 18, were travelling in an Austin Metro which collided with a bus. The accident happened after the driver lost control of the car which then smashed into a parked vehicle, a lamp-post and a signpost, before the head-on collision.

The driver and three of the passengers died immediately in the crash at Bexleyheath, south east London. The fifth teenager, a rear seat passenger, was taken to hospital but died yesterday afternoon.

Although friends said the five had been in a local pub, Scotland Yard could not comment on whether the driver or his passengers had been drinking until post-mortem examinations had been carried out. The driver of the bus suffered minor injuries and the only passenger on the bus was not injured.

The victims were named as driver Adam Heath, 18, Marl- borough Park Avenue, Sidcup; Phillip Schaller, 18, Longlands Road, Sidcup; Lee Powell, 17, West Woodside, Bexley; Paul Betteridge, 17, Hurst Road, Sidcup. The youth who died at King's College Hospital in Camberwell, south London, was Aaron Noble, 18, of Mayplace Avenue, Crayford.