Investigators have established that the Porsche Carrera GT in which actor Paul Walker and friend Roger Rodas lost their lives in a November 30 crash had no mechanical defects before the accident.
Furthermore, the investigation found no evidence that debris or other roadway conditions have caused the car to hit a light pole and a tree.
Since mechanical defects and road conditions have been eliminated as potential causes, the hypothesis that gains more ground is that the car was speeding at the moment of the crash.
“We’re looking at speed and speed alone,” a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told the Associated Press. The report says the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and asked not to be named.
Investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have estimated a speed range at which the car may have been traveling but won’t disclose it before Porsche engineers come to California next month to extract information from the car’s onboard data collectors. The unnamed official wouldn’t disclose that range.
Despite the explosion that followed the crash and killed the Fast & Furious star and his friend and financial adviser, data recorders survived and may help investigators establish the speed the car carried at the moment of the impact. According to the same official, the Porsche Carrera GT had negotiated a curve in the road just fine before crashing. “They were well out of the curve when they lost control,” the official said.
By Dan Mihalascu
PHOTO GALLERY
