Niagara Falls police are focusing on mechanical failure as the most likely cause of a bizarre accident that killed two people on the Rainbow Bridge on Nov. 23.
And as they continue their investigation, Mayor Robert M. Restaino says police are preparing to obtain a subpoena against Bentley Motors, the company that manufactured the 2022 luxury car involved in the fiery crash that killed a couple from Grand Island.
Bentley officials have told police that they will not voluntarily provide information that was transmitted from the “black box” on the car that crashed and exploded on the bridge, Restaino told The Buffalo News on Friday.
“I was disappointed to learn today that Bentley has informed our Police Department that we will have to go to court in order to obtain the data from the black box,” Restaino said. “We’re going to have to subpoena that information. While I am disappointed, I supposed that in a catastrophic accident like this, the company wants to act in a cautious manner, because of the possibility of a lawsuit.”
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Restaino added: “From everything police have determined so far, it looks likely that the accident was caused by mechanical failure.”
“Our thoughts remain with the family of the occupants of the car, and we are working with the authorities to help with their investigations. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage,” said Erin Bonner, a spokeswoman for Bentley USA.
Bonner added that there was a safety recall several years ago for a limited number of Bentleys that had problems with the accelerator pedal, but those vehicles were cars on which the driver sits on the right side, and the recall did not include the vehicle involved in the Rainbow Bridge accident.
Restaino said police have found no reason to believe that Kurt Villani recklessly or intentionally drove his Bentley at such a high rate of speed that the car went airborne over an 8-foot fence and exploded near inspection booths on the American side of the bridge.
He said the investigation has turned up nothing to indicate that the driver had a medical emergency that would have caused him to drive recklessly toward the bridge.
Shortly before the accident, the Villanis had stopped briefly at the nearby Seneca Niagara Casino to exchange some U.S. money for Canadian, the mayor said. The couple was heading to Toronto for a concert by the rock band Kiss, which was scheduled for that evening but had been canceled earlier that day.
“I do not think they knew, at the time of the accident, that the concert was being canceled,” Restaino said.
Restaino said Police Superintendent John Faso has briefed him about the investigation on a regular basis since the accident occurred. The mayor said he is especially concerned about the case because he has known the Villani family for decades.
An attorney who has represented the Villani family in the past declined to comment when contacted Friday by The News.
Police are trying to determine what signals were sent by the Event Data Recorder – more commonly called the “black box” – on the Villanis’ Bentley, Restaino said.
“So far, Bentley has been unwilling to provide that information,” the mayor said. “That would provide information on the speed of the vehicle, whether the driver activated the brakes and other information.”
Video footage of the accident showed the Bentley speeding toward the bridge at an extremely high rate of speed, striking a concrete median and being launched into the air, police said. The vehicle then exploded near an inspection booth.
It’s possible that the car was moving at close to 100 miles per hour, said Vincent A. Ettari, a civil engineer from Long Island who serves as an expert witness on road design in accident cases.
Ettari, who said he has watched the videotape of the crash 10 times, said he believes a mechanical problem caused the Bentley to speed out of control.
He also said, based on the video evidence, that it appears that Villani slammed on the brakes in an effort to slow the car.
“You’ve got a driver in his 50s with no record of reckless driving,” said Ettari, who also spoke to the New York Times about the crash. “There was a dark-colored vapor coming from the car as it became airborne. It appears to me that the driver slammed on the brakes, and the brakes just burned up … disintegrated.”
According to the Edmunds.com automobile website, the 2022 Bentley Flying Spur is a high-powered luxury car that can go from zero to 60 mph in four seconds. Depending on the options purchased, the vehicle, when new, could have cost between $204,500 and $309,000, the website said.
As police continue their investigation, they are hampered by the extreme damage to the car caused when it exploded and crashed, Restaino said.
“It was just a very sad scene of devastation at the crash site,” he said.