ATLANTA -- Two teenagers were killed and a third injured in a crash in the West End area of Atlanta after a police chase early Tuesday morning.

Officers spotted the car, which had been reported stolen Monday afternoon, just before 1 a.m.

"The preliminary investigation shows that a Honda Accord was observed by police being driven without its headlights at Joseph E. Lowery Blvd. and Ralph David Abernathy Blvd.," said Atlanta police spokesman Otis J. Redmond in a release sent to Channel 2 Action News.

"The officer attempted to make a traffic stop on the vehicle, the vehicle fled west on Ralph D. Abernathy Blvd. The vehicle fled the scene at a high rate of speed."

Police chased the car through southwest Atlanta, but Redmond said officers broke off the chase when they lost sight of the car.

A short time later, citizens flagged down the police and told them the car had crashed.

"The vehicle was located a short time later in the 200 block of Lawton St. where the vehicle left the roadway, went through a chain link fence and struck a tree," said Redmond.

Two occupants in the car were pronounced dead at the scene, while a third is in critical condition at Grady Hospital.

It took rescue crews about 90 minutes to cut the victims from the car.