No One Was Driving Tesla That Crashed And Killed 2 In Texas

No one was behind the wheel of a Tesla that crashed and killed two people near Houston on Friday, April 16.

The 2019 Model S ran off the road after it was unable to negotiate a turn in Spring shortly before midnight. The car hit a tree and burst into flames.

It took nearly 4 hours and 30,000 gallons of water to put out the flames.

“Normally when the fire department arrives, they have the vehicle fire in control in minutes, but this went on close to four hours,” Harris County Pct. 4 Constable Mark Herman told KHOU.

Fire crews had to call Tesla for help on how to put out the hard-to-extinguish fire.

The fire completely destroyed the vehicle, but investigators were able to determine that the two people who died in the crash were not driving the car. The victims were found in the front passenger seat and in the back passenger seat.

“(Investigators) are 100% certain that no one was in the driver seat driving that vehicle at the time of impact. They are positive," Herman said. "And again, the height from the back seat to the front seat, that would be almost impossible, but again our investigators are trained. They handle collisions. Several of our folks are reconstructionists, but they feel very confident just with the positioning of the bodies after the impact that there was no one driving that vehicle.”

The victims' names were not released, but they were both men who were 59 and 69 years old. Authorities told the New York Times that the men's wives said they were talking about the Tesla's autopilot feature before getting into the car and driving off.

Photo: Getty Images