A south Florida man, Omar Awan, died Sunday after his Tesla Model S spun out of control — for reasons yet unknown — hit several trees, and was engulfed in flames.
Police estimated that the car was traveling between 75 and 90 mph. The speed limit on that road is 50.
“It was just a massive ball of fire. It’s not possible anyone could’ve saved whoever was in there,” one bystander told Local 10 News.
According to the police report, “efforts to extract the driver were unsuccessful.”
According to a reporter on the scene, police said their rescue efforts were stymied by the fact that the Tesla’s retractable door handles did not retract after the crash. When asked about the door handles, a Tesla representative referred Business Insider to page 24 of the company’s first-responders’ guide.
“We are deeply saddened by this accident and our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy,” Tesla said in a statement to Business Insider. “We have reached out to the local authorities to offer our cooperation. We understand that speed is being investigated as a factor in this crash, and know that high speed collisions can result in a fire in any type of car, not just electric vehicles.”
By the time a police officer arrived a few minutes after the crash, the car was in flames. The body was burned beyond recognition, the police report said.
The blue Model S was towed, but just before 5 a.m. on Monday “it reignited and caught fire once again from a ruptured battery,” the report went on.
Last May, two teenage boys died after their Model S, which had been traveling at 112 mph, spun out of control and crashed into a wall in nearby Fort Lauderdale. They were also trapped inside the car.
One of the two victim’s parents are suing Tesla. They claim that one of the company’s service centers removed a speed-limiting device that the driver’s parents had installed in the car without notifying them.
They also claim that the car is “not crashworthy” because its battery is “inherently unstable and subject to explosion and spontaneous fire.”
“The vehicle had inadequate measures to prevent a post-collision fire; to wit: The battery pack of the Tesla was not treated with intumescent material to protect and provide protection from the propagation of thermal runaway from one cell to the adjacent cells,” the lawsuit says.
For Tesla, however, that crash was all about speed.
“Our thoughts continue to be with the families affected by this tragedy,” Tesla told Business Insider when asked about the lawsuit. “Unfortunately, no car could have withstood a high-speed crash of this kind. Tesla’s Speed Limit Mode, which allows Tesla owners to limit their car’s speed and acceleration, was introduced as an over-the-air update last year in dedication to our customer’s son, Barrett Riley, who tragically passed away in the accident.”
This article has been updated to include the response from Tesla.
If you have any experience or information regarding Tesla or its batteries, please contact this reporter at llopez@businessinsider.com.
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