Alijah Arenas Claims Cybertruck Steering Wheel Got Stuck Before Fiery Crash

Alijah Arenas is speaking out publicly for the first time about his serious car crash ... claiming the accident was caused by the Tesla Cybertruck's steering wheel getting stuck.

Arenas -- who committed to USC in January -- spoke about the crash at a press conference on Tuesday ... saying he was leaving a shooting session at the DSTRKT gym in Chatsworth, California, when the luxury vehicle malfunctioned.

"The wheel wasn't moving as easy as it should, and me noticing the keypad wasn't on, it was kinda just like weirding me out," Arenas said.

"I switched lanes without meaning to ... so I thought about, wait, something is wrong. Next thing you know, I can't get back to the left lane."

Arenas, 18, said he sped up to turn into a neighborhood, but the "wheel is not responding as if I'm not physically in there" -- and that's when the Cybertruck crashed.

"I wake up in the car after about three minutes. I had saw from the camera feed that the car caught fire on impact," Arenas said.

As we previously reported, Good Samaritans in the neighborhood pulled Arenas from the car ... and he said he met them personally to thank them for saving his life.

In fact, Arenas learned that one of them works at the USC medical facility.

"For me, that was just God sent," Arenas said. "I can't ask for anything less or anything more. God has His miracles. Everybody has miracles. I'm very lucky."