The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate a deadly Tesla crash and fire that killed two Florida high school students, the agency said.

Barrett Riley and Edgar Monserratt, both seniors, were traveling near an area known as “dead man's curve” in Fort Lauderdale Tuesday night when their all-electric Tesla Model S hit a wall and burst into flames, authorities said.

The boys, 18, died while trapped inside the burning vehicle, according to witnesses. One onlooker said he saw the victims moving, struggling to escape from the flames, but no one could help them break free.

A backseat passenger, identified as 18-year-old Alexander Berry of Fort Lauderdale, was thrown from the car and taken to a hospital with undisclosed injuries, according to ABC Miami affiliate WPLG-TV.

WPLG

Speed may have been a factor in the crash, the NTSB said Wednesday. Its investigation will primarily focus on the emergency response in relation to the electric vehicle battery fire, the agency said, adding that it had plans to have a team of four investigators in South Florida by Wednesday night.

“The goal of these investigations is to understand the impact of these emerging transportation technologies when they are part of a transportation accident,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a statement Wednesday.

Tesla released a statement Wednesday, saying, it was “working to establish the facts of the incident” and offered its “full cooperation” to local authorities. The car’s autopilot feature was not engaged at the time, Telsa said.

WPLG

The teens, both students at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, were a few weeks away from graduation. Riley, the driver, was set to attend Indiana’s Purdue University in the fall, while Monserratt was headed to Boston College in Massachusetts.

"These two members of our senior class should be finishing their [advanced placement] exams, celebrating things like prom and their upcoming graduation," Pine Crest president Dana Markham said in a statement Wednesday. "Instead, we are mourning their passing. There really are no words to express how deeply this has affected our entire community."

Larry Groshart, who said he witnessed the crash, told WPLG the car appeared to traveling between 50 and 60 mph.

"I saw the car coming too fast quietly, but I could hear the tire roar,” Groshart said. [It] bounced off the first wall, sideswiped it, then hit that corner and immediately burst into flames and moved that way, burning all the way, and it never stopped burning until it was burned up."

ABC News' Matthew Foster contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday it was reviewing a Florida crash of a Tesla Inc vehicle earlier this week that killed two teenagers.

FILE PHOTO: A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton, just outside London, Britain, February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

NHTSA said in a statement it was “gathering information on the tragic crash in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to understand all of the facts. The agency will take appropriate action based on its review.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday it was opening a probe into the crash and sending four investigators.

Earlier, Tesla said its autopilot system was unlikely to have been a factor in the crash. Autopilot, a form of advanced cruise control that has come under scrutiny after two crashes this year, was not engaged when the Model S car drove off the road and hit a concrete wall, catching fire, the company said, adding it had not yet seen logs from the crash.

“We have not yet been able to retrieve the logs from the vehicle, but everything we have seen thus far indicates a very high-speed collision and that autopilot was not engaged,” a Tesla spokesperson said.

The NTSB has four active investigations into crashes of the company’s electric vehicles.

While admitting that serious high-speed collisions could result in a fire, the Tesla spokesperson defended the car’s safety record, saying a gas car in the United States is five times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla vehicle.

In the event of an accident, eight airbags protect front and rear occupants, and the battery system automatically disconnects from the main power source, Tesla has said previously in promotional materials for the car.

“Should the worst happen, there is no safer car to be in than Model S,” according to a company brochure for the 2014 Model S.

NHTSA previously has said it is investigating two other Tesla crashes earlier this year, including a fatal March crash involving Autopilot in California.</s>Tesla Inc's autopilot system was unlikely to have been a factor in a Florida car crash this week which killed two teenagers, the electric carmaker said in a statement issued late on Wednesday.

REUTERS: Tesla Inc's autopilot system was unlikely to have been a factor in a Florida car crash this week which killed two teenagers, the electric carmaker said in a statement issued late on Wednesday.

The autopilot, a form of advanced cruise control that has come under scrutiny after two crashes this year, was not engaged when the Model S car drove off the road and hit a concrete wall, catching fire, the company said, although it added that it had not yet seen logs from the crash.

"We have not yet been able to retrieve the logs from the vehicle, but everything we have seen thus far indicates a very high-speed collision and that autopilot was not engaged," a Tesla spokesperson said.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has said it will investigate the latest accident involving a Tesla - the agency's fourth active probe into crashes of the company's electric vehicles.

While admitting that serious high-speed collisions can result in a fire, the Tesla spokesperson defended the car's safety record saying a gas car in the United States is five times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla vehicle.

In the event of an accident, eight airbags protect front and rear occupants, and the battery system automatically disconnects from the main power source, Tesla has said previously in promotional materials for the car.

"Should the worst happen, there is no safer car to be in than Model S," the company said in a brochure for the 2014 Model S.</s>Two teenagers were killed and a third was injured when a Tesla Model S crashed and caught fire in Florida, according to NBC Miami.

All three occupants in the vehicle involved in the crash Tuesday night in Fort Lauderdale were 18-year-old males, the report said.

"Our thoughts are with the families and friends affected by this tragedy," Tesla said in a statement. "We are working to establish the facts of the incident and offer our full cooperation to local authorities."

Police said the driver who died was Barrett Riley and the passenger who died was Edgar Monserratt Martinez, according to NBC Miami. Alexander Berry was named as the passenger who was ejected and injured, the report said.



There have been a few high-profile crashes involving Tesla cars, including some where Autopilot was engaged. Most recently, a man crashed his Tesla Model X in Mountain View, California, in March.

The ensuing investigation led to a falling out between Tesla and the National Transportation Safety Board, which was looking into the crash. The NTSB said Tesla had improperly released information related to the crash before it had been properly vetted. Tesla had said it withdrew from the investigation, and that the agency had violated its own rules by releasing "incomplete information to the media."</s>The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S that burst into flames after colliding with a concrete wall in Florida on Tuesday, the agency said, announcing its fourth active probe into a collision involving vehicles made by Tesla Inc.

Two people were killed in the accident, and a team of four NTSB investigators will look into it. The agency does not anticipate that Tesla’s Autopilot package of driver-assistance technologies will be part of the new probe, according to a press release. Investigators will primarily focus on how firefighters and others responded to electric car’s battery fire caused by the crash, the agency said Wednesday.

Speed is believed to be a factor in the accident, in which a 2014 Model S “immediately caught on fire, becoming fully engulfed in flames” after driving off a roadway and hitting a concrete wall, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department said in a press release Wednesday.

“NTSB has a long history of investigating emerging transportation technologies, such as lithium ion battery fires in commercial aviation,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a statement. “The goal of these investigations is to understand the impact of these emerging transportation technologies when they are part of a transportation accident.”

The Tesla’s driver and front-seat passenger were pronounced dead at the scene, the police said, adding that a rear-seat passenger was taken to a hospital after being ejected from the vehicle upon impact.

The inquiry is the NTSB’s fourth active investigation of Tesla vehicle crashes and the third of a crash-related fire. The agency is probing the March 23 crash of a Model X that caught fire after hitting a highway barrier in Mountain View, California, that killed the vehicle’s driver. Another Model X SUV that caught fire after crashing into a garage in August 2017 is also under investigation.

An accident involving a Model S that ran into a parked firetruck on a freeway near Los Angeles in January is also under investigation.

Read more: Musk hung up on NTSB chief in April</s>(Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday it will investigate a Tesla accident in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this week that killed two teenagers and injured another - the agency’s fourth active probe into crashes of the company’s electric vehicles.

The NTSB said it was sending a team of four to investigate Tuesday’s crash of a 2014 Tesla Model S that was reportedly traveling at high speed when it struck a wall and caught fire. The agency said it does not believe the Tesla’s semi-autonomous Autopilot system will be part of the investigation.

This investigation is “primarily focus(ed) on emergency response in relation to the electric vehicle battery fire, including fire department activities and towing operations,” the agency said.

A preliminary investigation showed the Tesla drove off the road and hit a concrete wall, immediately catching fire, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department said in a statement. The speed of the vehicle is believed to have been a factor in the crash, the police said.

Tesla Inc did not immediately comment. Shares of the company closed up at $306.85 up 1.6 percent and were off less than 0.5 percent in afterhours trading.

The new investigation adds to an already contentious relationship between the company and the agency.

Last month, Tesla lashed out at the NTSB after it took the unusual step of removing the automaker from the investigation of a fatal crash in March in which a Tesla vehicle’s driver-assistance Autopilot system was in use.

The NTSB defended the decision, saying Tesla released investigative information prematurely and in violation of procedure.

Tesla in return blasted the NTSB, saying the board was “more concerned with press headlines than actually promoting safety.” It accused the agency of violating its own rules while trying to prevent Tesla from disclosing all the facts.

The NTSB is also investigating an August 2017 Tesla battery fire in Lake Forest, California, after an owner lost control and ran the vehicle into his garage and a January crash of a Tesla vehicle apparently traveling in Autopilot that struck a fire truck in California.</s>
• The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced on Wednesday that it will investigate Tuesday’s Tesla Model S crash that killed two teenagers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
• The agency said in a press release that the investigation will focus on the emergency response related to the battery fire that followed the crash, “including fire department activities and towing operations.”
• The agency said it does not expect Tesla‘s semi-autonomous Autopilot technology to be a part of the investigation.
• Tesla and the NTSB disagreed over Tesla’s decision to disclose information about a fatal Model X crash in March.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced on Wednesday that it will investigate Tuesday’s Tesla Model S crash that killed two teenagers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The agency said in a press release that the investigation will focus on the emergency response related to the battery fire that followed the crash, “including fire department activities and towing operations.” The agency said it does not expect Tesla’s semi-autonomous Autopilot technology to be a part of the investigation.

“NTSB has a long history of investigating emerging transportation technologies, such as lithium ion battery fires in commercial aviation, as well as a fire involving the lithium ion battery in a Chevrolet Volt in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” NTSB chairman Robert S. Sumwalt said in a press release. “The goal of these investigations is to understand the impact of these emerging transportation technologies when they are part of a transportation accident.”

The NTSB didn’t give a specific timeline for the investigation, but said investigations that involve fatalities tend to take 12-24 months.

The fire reportedly prevented people from helping the victims

The crash occurred on Tuesday after the vehicle hit a concrete wall at around 6:46 p.m. and caught fire, killing the driver, Barrett Riley, and front-seat passenger, Edgar Martinez, who were both 18-years-old. The backseat passenger, 18-year-old Alexander Berry, was thrown out of the vehicle after the crash and taken to a nearby hospital. Berry’s condition has not been reported.

The vehicle’s speed is believed to be a factor in the accident.

A local resident told CBS affiliate WFOR that the fire made it difficult for observers to help the car’s occupants.

“Two people trapped in the front seats,” the person, who was not identified by name, said. “Nobody could help because the car was on fire. The fire was so intense that nobody could reach them. There were people trying to get there but it wasn’t happening.”

A Tesla representative told Business Insider that the company is “working to establish the facts of the incident” and will cooperate with local authorities. You can read the company’s full statement below.

“Our thoughts are with the families and friends affected by this tragedy. The family who owned the car has been a close friend of Tesla for many years, and this hits us particularly hard. We are working to establish the facts of the incident and offer our full cooperation to the local authorities. We have not yet been able to retrieve the logs from the vehicle, but everything we have seen thus far indicates a very high-speed collision and that Autopilot was not engaged. Serious high-speed collisions can result in a fire, regardless of the type of car. Tesla’s billions of miles of actual driving data shows that a gas car in the United States is five times more likely to experience a fire than a Tesla vehicle. This doesn’t change how devastating an event like this is for our customer’s family and friends, and our hearts are with them.”

Tesla and the NTSB argued after an accident in March

After a fatal Model X accident in March that involved the vehicle’s battery catching fire, Tesla said the batteries in its vehicles are designed to decrease the rate at which a fire can spread.

“Tesla battery packs are designed so that in the rare circumstance a fire occurs, it spreads slowly so that occupants have plenty of time to get out of the car,” the company wrote on its website.

In the aftermath of the March accident, Tesla helped the agency retrieve and interpret data from the vehicle’s logs, but Tesla clashed with the agency over the company’s decision to disclose information about the crash on its blog.

As a result, Tesla is no longer a party to the agency’s investigation, though it said it would continue to assist the agency. Each side disagreed over who ended Tesla’s party status. The NTSB said it revoked it, while Tesla said it voluntarily chose to remove itself from the party agreement.</s>SAN FRANCISCO — The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that it was sending four investigators to probe a Tesla Model S crash that killed two Florida teens when it hit a concrete wall and burst into flames.

Two Fort Lauderdale high school students were killed in the crash Tuesday night, while a third 18-year-old was ejected from the vehicle and transported to a local hospital, according to Miami's NBC 6.

The car's speed — and not the electric automaker's partial self-driving Autopilot system — is considered the main culprit in the accident, according to both the NTSB and Tesla. The 2014 Model S was in a residential zone with a 35-mile-an-hour limit.

A Tesla Model X is displayed at the Paris Motor Show in Paris on Sept. 30, 2016. The base model has a 237 mile range and starts at $79,500, according to Tesla.

Instead, the decision to a launch an investigation centers on the fire that erupted after the battery-powered sedan hit the wall.

“NTSB has a long history of investigating emerging transportation technologies, such as lithium-ion battery fires in commercial aviation, as well as a fire involving the lithium-ion battery in a Chevrolet Volt in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a statement.

"The goal of these investigations is to understand the impact of these emerging transportation technologies when they are part of a transportation accident," he said.

More: Elon Musk tweets new criticism of Wall Street's Tesla skeptics

More: Elon Musk’s style and Tesla's Model 3 mission could be on a 'collision course'

Tesla, based south of San Francisco in Palo Alto, Calif., did not respond to an immediate request for comment, but issued a statement to NBC 6 saying that it had so far not been able to retrieve a vehicle identification number which would allow the company to access the car's computer logs.

"However, had Autopilot been engaged it would have limited the vehicle’s speed to 35 mph or less on this street, which is inconsistent with eyewitness statements and the damage to the vehicle," Tesla's statement said.

This is the second time in recent months that a Tesla accident has drawn the attention of the NTSB, which is still investigating a March Model X crash in Mountain View, Calif., that killed its driver. That vehicle was in Autopilot mode when it hit a concrete barrier.

In this Friday March 23, 2018 photo provided by KTVU, emergency personnel work a the scene where a Tesla electric SUV crashed into a barrier on U.S. Highway 101 in Mountain View, Calif. The National Transportation Safety Board has sent two investigators to look into a fatal crash and fire Friday in California that involved a Tesla electric SUV. The agency says on Twitter that it's not clear whether the Tesla Model X was operating on its semi-autonomous control system called Autopilot at the time. Investigators will study the fire that broke out after the crash. (KTVU via AP) ORG XMIT: FX101

Tesla said the driver ignored repeated warnings from the car to take back control. But in reporting details of the crash on its website, it raised the ire of the NTSB which said the release of such information was premature. The NTBS subsequently removed Tesla as a party in its investigation; Tesla said it chose to withdraw to defend its position.

That fatal Model X crash also sparked a fire that took hours to put out, according to reports.

More: Elon Musk puts his money where his mouth is: buys $9.85M more shares of Tesla

More: Elon Musk dismisses talk of Tesla cash crunch: 'Boring questions are not cool'

Experts say that once ignited, lithium-ion batteries — the same kind found in laptops and cell phones, though in far smaller quantities than cars — have a tendency to ignite in a chain reaction and burn considerably hotter than the lead-acid batteries in conventional gasoline-powered vehicles.

The latest NTSB investigation into a Tesla crash is likely to cause more grief for a company trying to ramp up production of its mission-critical Model 3 entry-level electric sedan. But some industry observers wonder whether the spotlight is warranted.

"Based on annual statistics, about 500 gas-powered cars catch on fire and around 100 people die on U.S. roads every day," Fred Lambert, founder of electric vehicle site Electrek, wrote Wednesday. "Those stories generally never go pass local news outlets, but when a Tesla vehicle is involved, it suddenly makes national news."</s>(Reuters) - A 2014 Tesla Model S crashed and caught fire in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Tuesday, resulting in the death of two teenagers and prompting the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to launch an investigation.

Here is a list of incidents of Tesla vehicles catching fire:

October 1, 2013 - A Tesla Model S caught fire near Seattle, after the car collided with a large piece of metal debris on the road that punched a hole through the protective armor plating. The driver was not injured. (reut.rs/2KPmDE4)

October 2013 - A Tesla car crashed through a concrete wall and hit a tree, catching fire in Merida, Mexico. The driver was not injured. (reut.rs/2KPmDE4)

November 2013 - A Tesla Model S caught fire after the electric car ran over a tow hitch that hit the undercarriage of the vehicle, in Smyrna, Tennessee. The driver was not injured. (reut.rs/2KPmDE4)

February 2014 - A Tesla Model S caught fire in Toronto, Canada, with the fire originating in the engine area. There were no injuries. (cnb.cx/2jL0UAC)

March 2014 - Following the fires, Tesla cars were outfitted with a triple underbody shield to bring the risk of fire down to "virtually zero", following the car fires of 2013, Elon Musk said in a blog post on March 28, 2014. (bit.ly/Zc93lA)

July 2014 - A stolen Tesla Model S crashed into several vehicles and split in half after striking a light pole in West Hollywood, catching fire and leaving the driver in a critical condition, two officers hospitalized and half of the car wedged in a synagogue. (bit.ly/2G4cWxO)

June 2015 - A 2013 Tesla plunged off a cliff along Malibu Canyon Road, and caught fire killing the 53-year-old driver. (bit.ly/2KMpxJz)

August 2016 - A Tesla electric car caught fire during a promotional tour in southwest France. No one was injured in the incident. (dailym.ai/2Kb7qvQ)

November 2016 - A Tesla vehicle crashed into a tree and burst into flames in Indianapolis, killing the driver and the passenger. (dailym.ai/2G3JMPr)

March 2017 - A Tesla Model S caught fire at the Jinqiao Supercharger Station in Shanghai, China. No one was harmed in the incident. (bit.ly/2wtZbsP)

August 2017 - A Tesla vehicle went off road in Lake Forest, California and crashed into a home, igniting a garage fire. The driver in the Tesla was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. (bit.ly/2I8f7GN)

October 2017 - A Tesla Model S caught fire in Austria, after the driver crashed into a concrete barrier at the side of the road. The driver survived the crash. (dailym.ai/2l2AMoy)

March 2018 - A Tesla Model X crashed and caught fire near Mountain View, California. The crash involved two other cars resulting in the death of the 38-year-old Tesla driver at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.

May 2018 - A 2014 Tesla Model S drove off the road and hit a concrete wall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, immediately catching fire killing two teenagers and injuring another.</s>Federal investigators have opened what is now their fourth active investigation involving a Tesla vehicle after two teenagers were killed in a fiery crash of a Model S in Florida on Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced Wednesday it was sending a team of four to investigate the crash on State Route A1 in Fort Lauderdale, which killed two 18-year-olds and injured a third 18-year-old.

Barrett Riley, who was driving the 2014 Tesla Model S, and Edgar Monserratt Martinez, who was in the front passenger seat, died at the scene when the vehicle drove off a roadway and crashed into a concrete wall, according to the police report. The car immediately caught fire and was fully engulfed in flames, police said.

Alexander Berry, who was in the back seat, was ejected from the vehicle and taken to the hospital, said police, who theorize that excessive speed may have been a factor in the crash.

The NTSB said it is focusing on the emergency response to the electric battery fire. The agency said it did not anticipate that Autopilot —Tesla's driver-assistance technology, which has been in the spotlight lately —would be part of its investigation.

"NTSB has a long history of investigating emerging transportation technologies, such as lithium ion battery fires in commercial aviation, as well as a fire involving the lithium ion battery in a Chevrolet Volt in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration," NTSB Chairman Robert S. Sumwal said in a statement.

Tesla has not been able to retrieve the vehicle logs, "but everything we have seen thus far indicates a very high-speed collision and that Autopilot was not engaged," a spokesman said Thursday.

"The family who owned the car has been a close friend of Tesla for many years, and this hits us particularly hard," he said.

The NTSB is now investigating four accidents involving vehicles made by the Palo Alto electric-car company, including the fatal accident on Highway 101 in Mountain View in March. That accident killed Walter Huang, 38, of San Mateo, who was driving a Model X and crashed into a concrete barrier. The Model X caught fire. Tesla said Autopilot was engaged in the moments leading up to the March 23 crash.

The agency is also investigating two other crashes in California: A Model S crashed into a fire truck near Culver City in January, and the driver reportedly said Autopilot was engaged at the time. And it is looking into a battery fire of a Model X that drove into a home's garage in Lake Forest last August.
The National Transportation Safety Board opens an investigation into an automobile accident in Florida, involving a Tesla Model S where two teenagers died. According to a statement by Tesla, the car's Autopilot feature was not engaged at the time.