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A federal agency has confirmed that it has launched an investigation into last month’s deadly car crash on Foothill Road that took the lives of a Pleasanton family of four.
According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spokesperson, the administration’s special crash investigations division will be looking into the crash that involved a VinFast VF8 electric vehicle.
“Specifically, SCI will document the crash circumstances and the ensuing fire,” according to the NHTSA spokesperson.
According to the SCI’s website, cases handled by the division collect data which is used for examining special crash circumstances or outcomes from an engineering perspective.
“The benefit of the program is its ability to locate unique real-world crashes anywhere in the country and perform in-depth clinical investigations in a timely manner that can be used by the automotive safety community to improve the performance of its advanced safety systems,” according to the SCI’s website.
A VinFast spokesperson told the Weekly that the NHTSA, however, is not specifically investigating the electric vehicle company.
“VinFast and NHTSA are working cooperatively to determine the causes of the tragic crash in Pleasanton,” the VinFast spokesperson said. “The Pleasanton police are currently investigating the cause of the accident and will share their findings when their work is completed.”
On April 24, Pleasanton residents Rincy George, 41, Tarun Cherukara George, 41, and their two children Rowan, 13, and Aaron, 9, died in a single-vehicle crash on Foothill Road near Stoneridge Drive around 9 p.m.
According to the Pleasanton Police Department, evidence from the scene indicated the vehicle hit a roadside pole, went airborne and struck a large oak tree that night before the car caught fire twice.
PPD officers previously stated that they believed the main factor for the family’s death was not the fire, but rather the speed of the collision with the oak tree.
PPD Lt. Erik Silacci told the Weekly there are currently no new updates on the cause of the crash but he said the police department has also been working with the NHTSA to investigate the incident. He also said PPD has been receiving assistance from the California Highway Patrol’s multidisciplinary accident investigation team.
However, after the crash a complaint was filed to the NHTSA on April 29 which talks about a 2023 VinFast VF8 that was owned by a person who said their coworker died along with their family on the same day as the April 24 crash. The consumer complaint location was also listed as Pleasanton.
The details of the complaint, which matches the April 24 crash, states the complainant was concerned their coworker who was driving their car might have experienced similar steering failures that the complainant had in the past.
The NHTSA previously told the Weekly it could not confirm whether the vehicle owner complaint is connected to a specific crash or incident.
