Featured Image Credit: Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority
Topics: Tesla
Anish Vij
A man crashed his Tesla through the Greater Columbus Convention Center at 70mph speeds. Watch the incident unfold below:
The man in the driving seat has been named as 63-year-old Frantz Jules, who claimed that the breaks stopped working on his vehicle.
The actual crash occurred last week on the Downtown highway, on Wednesday (4 May), as reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
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The incident occurred around lunchtime on a business day.
As shown in the video above, the vehicle ploughs right through the glass building and slams into a steel support column, which brings the car to an immediate stop.
Jules told police he was driving on Ohio Route 315 when he lost control of his brakes and was unable to stop', the police report claims.
Remarkably, no one was injured in the crash, although Jules was transported to the hospital after the incident.
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The police say: "According to the driver the car stayed at a steady speed of 70 mph."
According to the publication, Columbus police Detective Christopher Bailey, of the Accident Investigation Unit, emailed the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB): "Just let me know if I need to recover the vehicle and send to our (impound) lot."
However, Thomas Barth, special investigations branch chief of the NTSB Office of Highway Safety in Washington, D.C said they aren't investigating the incident.
He said: "The NTSB has decided not to pursue an investigation of this crash.
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"Tesla checked their system and they did not receive any telematic data from this crash.
"The vehicle ECM would likely have retained the data."
He explained: "We are interested in any vehicle that is operating under some sort of autonomous mode or utilising an autopilot feature.
"Presumably the vehicle still has the electronic data recorder, so if we wanted to get that data, we could, if we had decided to investigate it."
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In a follow up email, Bailey allegedly emailed Barth after learning NTSB would drop the case.
He wrote: "Our notifications (to the NTSB) were initially an FYI event because of the statements of the driver and prior knowledge of NTSB’s interest in Tesla-involved incidents/accidents.
"I would rather be involved in a … 'Why did they call?' situation, instead of a … 'Why did they not call?' situation."
The police report allegedly denied any mention of the car being in autopilot, or whether they asked Jules if it was engaged, the publication has reported.
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LADbible has contacted Tesla and The Columbia Police Department for comment on the incident.