RCMP have laid criminal charges against a teenaged girl who was behind the wheel of a car when it collided with a semi truck on the Alaska Highway last August, killing two passengers.

The driver faces two counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

She is scheduled to appear in youth court at a later date, Whitehorse RCMP Insp. Archie Thompson stated in a release issued late this morning.

The driver’s name cannot be released, as she is under 18 years of age.

The early-morning collision occurred on the Alaska Highway at the Hamilton Boulevard extension on Aug. 9, 2014.

It left a 15-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man dead.

Clare Cherepak, a student at Vanier Catholic Secondary School, and Brendan Kinney, a graduate of Porter Creek Secondary School, were passengers in the 3 a.m. accident.

Kinney, who was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, was found dead at the scene by emergency responders. Cherepak died in hospital.

An 18-year-old male passenger, Derrick Gibbons, was medevaced to Vancouver General Hospital in serious but stable condition. He spent weeks in hospital.

The 15-year-old driver was treated and released the same day.

The truck driver was not injured.

Whitehorse RCMP Const. Christine Grant said shortly after the incident it was not yet clear what had happened, but it seemed the car, a compact Honda Accord, was travelling north when it turned in the intersection into the path of the oncoming truck.

“That’s what I understand happened,” Grant said.

The Whitehorse RCMP traffic analyst was on the scene to investigate, she noted.

Assistance from the Whitehorse Fire Department was needed to remove the occupants from the car, due to the extensive damage.

“It is with deep sadness that we mourn the sudden and tragic loss of one of our students,” Vanier principal Ryan Sikkes wrote in a statement posted on the school’s website at the time.

“(Clare’s) smile, warmth and humour will be missed by staff and students alike.”

Cherepak would have started Grade 11 last September.

In an article for What’s Up Yukon posted online last winter, she wrote that she played guitar, bass guitar and drums in one of Vanier’s rock bands.

The year prior, as a member of the school’s Social Justice Club, Cherepak walked up and down Main Street in the snow collecting change for UNICEF.

Rea Postoloski spoke to the Star after Cherepak’s death – she first met the girl in a Kindergarten class at St. Elias Community School in Haines Junction.

Postoloski was an educational assistant then, but after she became a teacher, she did her four-month practicum in Cherepak’s Grade 6 class.

“She was an awesome kid,” Postoloski told the Star last August. “She was bright, helpful, kind, considerate. Just a really nice kid.”

She said the Cherepak family later moved to Whitehorse, and she ran into them around town, at sporting and community events.

“She loved sports,” Postoloski said. “She was very outdoorsy.

“Her mom and dad were awesome at always making sure she was very involved in environmental issues, and things like that. She certainly was on her way to becoming a steward.

“She was a wonderful young lady.”

Kinney worked at Bigway Foods in Copper Ridge. He was a graduate of Porter Creek Secondary School.

Store manager Ash Jurovich told the Star he had hired Kinney three years earlier, when Kinney was still in high school. He’d been working at the store full-time since graduating.

Kinney was one of the more senior staff – he would assist customers, run the till, stock shelves and work in the bakery.

“He could do everything around here,” Jurovich said.

“He was really outgoing, really funny. He was a smart kid. He got along great with everybody. Just one of the best guys I knew.”

Memorial pages for both Cherepak and Kinney were created on Facebook in the wake of the collision.

– With files from Christopher Reynolds.