There's a photo at the link and they showed it on TV news as well

They have toughened up SUV roofs some due to higher incidence of roll-overs, but there are practical limits.

A 30 foot drop is no joke but probably much less force than driving into a barrier at highway speed, and in such cases you wouldn't expect belted up kids in the back to all die.

Also, the air bags are all the wrong direction for a roof-impact. (Understandably)

Hence my (grim) guess.

When SUVs became popular their higher center of gravity led to a lot of rollover accidents so they made the roofs (and posts between the windows) stronger, but there are limits.

Even if the structural integrity of the passenger compartment is not compromised, every bit of safety design is for impact from the front, side and rear, as it should be.

So there's no protection. Seatbelts and airbags aren't designed for it. The energy absorbing joints in cars aren't aligned that way.

There's probably no vehicle that would take a 30 foot drop onto the roof well.

Damn - it's easy to die.

Blowing a tire at 70 mph will cause almost any vehicle to crash, more likely if a front than a rear, but bad news either way.

That parkway is one of them. No shoulders. Very low guardrails. No crushable barriers. Lanes narrower than standard by several feet. No accel/decell lanes. Quite simply, there is no margin for error, as this accident appears to demonstrate.

Very tragic.

They said it crossed a couple lanes before going off. It probably hit the curb, which launched it enough to put it over the guardrail and flip it.

Coming down on the roof, I don't think that the seatbelt retractors will lock up.

They were better when seatbelts first came out and you adjusted the length to fit manually.

So incredibly sad.

I like that folks are discussing ways to strengthen the positioning of airbags to prevent such tragedies. Ordinary people have been known to come up with ideas to help prevent injuries, and group brain power is an amazing thing when directed toward good causes.