the Commodore. The 54-year-old father and 21-year-old son from Kalgoorlie died when their car was propelled into bushes and burst into flames.

Meanwhile, police have issued a plea to witnesses to another fatal crash on Monday, which claimed the life of a 19-year-old woman and her unborn child.

Shona Leigh Caley and her partner Alex Riley, 18, were travelling from Perth to their home town of Corrigin about 7.50am, when their blue Mitsubishi Lancer Coupe ploughed off the Brookton Highway and hit a tree.

Mr Riley suffered minor injuries.

Investigators would like to speak to anyone who might have seen the vehicle before the crash.Until last year, Arati Prabhakar worked for the venture capitalists who backed Solyndra, the green-tech firm that imploded in a scandal described by Mitt Romney as an example of the White House's "crony capitalism." Now Prabhakar has a new job, this one in the Obama administration: running the Pentagon's most important research agency. But being the geek-in-chief requires investing billions on risky, high-tech bets that aren't so different from Solyndra.

Prabhakar, who starts in her new position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on July 30, will be Darpa's first Indian-American chief. And she boasts an impressive resume. Prabhakar came to this country at the age of 3, growing up in Lubbock, Texas. She earned a Ph.D. in applied physics from Caltech and founded Darpa's Microelectronics Technology Office.