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> • 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> 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. </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> March 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is opening a field investigation into a fatal Tesla Inc crash and major vehicle fire near Mountain View, California, on March 23, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

In a Twitter post, the agency said it is “unclear if automated control system was active at time of crash.”

Tesla did not immediately comment. California Highway Patrol said a driver was killed when a Tesla vehicle crashed into a Mfreeway divider causing a fire and shutting down two lanes of the freeway. (Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Susan Thomas) </s> The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched investigators to examine a fatal crash last week in California of a Tesla Inc. electric vehicle and determine whether its semi-automated driving system was engaged.

The NTSB, obliged increasingly to address questions surrounding the safety of driverless-car technologies, said Tuesday it was conducting a “field investigation” of the Friday crash near Mountain View, Calif., that resulted in the vehicle later catching fire.

“Unclear if automated control system was active at time of crash,” the NTSB said in a social-media posting, in a reference to Tesla’s Autopilot feature. “Issues examined include: post-crash fire, steps to make vehicle safe for removal from scene.”

Read: Tesla is just months from a total collapse, says hedge-fund manager

A man was killed in the accident, after his Tesla traveling south on Highway 101 collided with a barrier and was struck by two other vehicles, according to the California Highway Patrol. Tesla’s stock TSLA, -8.22% plunged more than 8% in Tuesday trading.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com. </s> 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.

The Mercury News of San Jose reported that a 38-year-old San Mateo man was killed in the U.S. 101 freeway crash near Mountain View in Silicon Valley.

The California Highway Patrol told the newspaper that the man was traveling south in the carpool lane when the Tesla hit a freeway barrier. The crash caused the fire. Rescuers freed the man but he died later at a hospital. </s> SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - 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.

The Mercury News of San Jose reported that a 38-year-old San Mateo man was killed in the U.S. 101 freeway crash near Mountain View in Silicon Valley.

The California Highway Patrol told the newspaper that the man was traveling south in the carpool lane when the Tesla hit a freeway barrier. The crash caused the fire. Rescuers freed the man but he died later at a hospital. </s> US federal investigators said Tuesday they were examining a fatal crash last week involving a Tesla electric automobile in California.

[SAN FRANCISCO] US federal investigators said Tuesday they were examining a fatal crash last week involving a Tesla electric automobile in California.

The California Highway Patrol reported that a 38-year-old man died Friday after his 2017 Tesla Model X collided with a highway barrier near the town of Mountain View, according to The San Jose Mercury News.

The vehicle caught fire before two other approaching cars hit it.

Tesla dove on Wall Street following the news, with shares closing down 8.2 per cent.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday two investigators had begun a field probe.

"Unclear if automated control system was active at the time of the crash," the agency said on Twitter.

"Issues examined include: post-crash fire, steps to make vehicle safe for removal from scene." Tesla said Tuesday it was cooperating with the investigation.

"We have been deeply saddened by this accident and we have offered our full cooperation to the authorities as we work to establish the facts of the accident," a spokesman said.

In January of last year, the US Transportation Department closed an investigation into the fatal 2016 crash in Florida of a Tesla on autopilot, finding that no "safety-related defect" had caused that accident.

Friday's fatal Tesla crash came the same week a collision involving an autonomous Uber vehicle in Arizona killed a pedestrian and caused that company to halt its self-driving car programme.
The United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) launches a probe into a Tesla electric car crash and fire in California. The NTSB says it will investigate issues firefighters had trying to determine how to respond.