Email Sent by Michael Hastings Hours Before His Death Mentions ‘Big Story’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/21/email-sent-by-michael-hastings-hours-before-his-death-mentions-a-big-story-and-a-need-to-go-off-the-radar

by r0h1n • 13 years ago

204 153 13 years ago

theblaze.com

Udo• 13 years ago

I remember actually rolling my eyes when the first Hastings crash conspiracy statements were made here on HN, now they don't seem so far fetched. Crazy world. Still, chances are it was an unfortunately timed accident. However small it might be though, the (perceived) realistic probability of government involvement is kind of a big deal, at least for people like me who historically never believed in that sort of thing.

throwaway10001• 13 years ago

Accidents do happen, even after sending email warning about big stories and Fed investigations. But then it all depends on his "big story." It need not be the Government doing it, maybe some big fish to avoid jail, embarrassment or a fortune loss, called in a favor or paid to have the problem solved. Personally I could see both of them happening.

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

Seriously, Glenn Beck's website is showing up on the front page of Hacker News? It's like the worst of Rush Limbaugh meets Alex Jones. Flagged.

mbenjaminsmith4• 13 years ago

Here's the same story via the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-hastings-crash-e...

Also, the local station KTLA broke the story.

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

I wish one of the legit news sources was on the front page, then, instead of this.

edit: nice component, btw: https://github.com/lattejed/LJSelectionView

stfu2• 13 years ago

I don't see this as an issue.

We often have links on hn by left wing sources such as MotherJones. Quite frankly I enjoy reading stories written by the different viewpoints and am most certain hn readers are able to detract personal biases from articles as well.

rattray• 13 years ago

I'd prefer not to be supporting Glenn Beck's company by boosting his impressions if I can avoid it. Especially if another source (LA Times) broke the story.

davidw• 13 years ago

Those sites did not appear here in the past - or at least not prominently.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

Glenn Beck? Yuk, I feel dirty now! That's like reading the Daily Mail here in the UK!!

That said, seems like a reasonable fair enough article.

wavefunction9• 13 years ago

You know what's worse then Glenn Beck's website might potentially be? Someone that would disregard a message simply because of the messenger.

Now I'm not necessarily a believer, but it certainly is a fishy story.

pyalot24• 13 years ago

The probability of a journalist investigating a big story in the atmosphere of recent scandals is significant. The probability of having a car crash, even a weird one is also quite significant. I won't comment on the (alleged) history of DUI offenses of hastings.

But if you really want to go off the conspiracy deep end, here's my take: Hastings was driving a modern Mercedes. These come with everything like ABS, EPS, Servo steering, Electronic throttle control, automatic transmission and so forth. And as you might know, cars these days are basically computers on wheels intrepreting the users input to the devices output. So if you really wanted to "produce" a freak accident, like say, remote controlling the car into a palm tree. All you'd need to do was hack the onboard control computer, you probably wouldn't even need an RC receiver as you could probably reuse the builtin wifi/radio to input commands to the computer. So unless you perform forensic examination of the onboard computer (which is usually locked down with DRM so you aren't able to repair your own car anymore) there'd be zero evidence.

shin_lao2• 13 years ago

Please don't.

The computer doesn't control the steering and breaks are mechanical. There's no remote control.

Unless you sabotage the car, what you're saying is impossible. But if you sabotage the car, you don't need all the electronics. Just wear off the breaks or whatever else.

I think you're overestimating the importance of Mr. Hastings. Maybe you'd like to add some folklore or magic to what is a tragic, but trivial death.

Amadou3• 13 years ago

I don't think it is available on a c250 sedan like hastings was apparently driving, but Mercedes (and other manufacturers) have systems that do control steering that could conceivably be remotely hijacked. All of the self-parking systems leave the accelerator to the driver but let the computer handle the steering. Here is a review of 4 different manufacturers' self-parking systems:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2012/12/06/self-par...

mbenjaminsmith4• 13 years ago

Brakes in most modern cars are under computer control. They are in mine. I know that because I can disable that control if I want to drive more aggressively.

Before you say something's impossible, you might want to do some research.

http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf

Cars can be controlled via their onboard computers.

I think you're overestimating the importance of Mr. Hastings.

Wikipedia:

"His Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the Afghanistan war, documented the widespread contempt of him and his staff for civilian officials in the US government and resulted in the general's resignation."

On the journalistic threat scale of 1-10 I'd say Hastings was an 11.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

Have a read:

http://www2.mercedes-benz.co.uk/content/media_library/united...

Not much on those cars isn't computer controlled.

pyalot24• 13 years ago

Like I said, it's improbable somebody would go trough the trouble. But that doesn't mean it'd be impossible.

Regarding oldskool sabotage, those aren't quite reliable to produce freak accidents. Too much chance and user behavior involved.

Regarding breaking: Anti-blocking systems can release the breaks all by themselves. They do this by computer input issued after evaluating the sensors for each wheel when they're working. If hacked, they could do this on pretty much any condition.

Regarding steering: assisted steering uses an acctuator to amplify your input. This can be circumvented to steer by itself. Self parking systems make use of this, there's no separate system to make the steering wheel turn for self parking, it reuses the mechanics of assisted steering to do the job.

fnordfnordfnord7• 13 years ago

I'm not sure about the C class, but there was a huge recall of E class w212 models over the ABS pump / braking system, basically the pump could fail catastrophically and render the car with NO brakes. If they haven't abandoned the silly/unsafe electric over hydraulic full authority control methodology for the braking system then you can't rule out remote controlled brakes.

Without regard to whether Hastings' car had the flawed ABS system (probably not). The very definition of an ABS system is that braking control is taken from the driver and given to a computer, so no the brakes are not immune to hacking, no matter how unlikely you think that scenario is.

I'll let Mercedes speak for themselves as to whether electronic control of steering is possible: http://techcenter.mercedes-benz.com/_en/distronic_plus_steer...

tomjen33• 13 years ago

I could go with it being an accident if it wasn't for the fire and the transmission so far away. That can only be explained by an explosion and while fuel is combustible a fuel tank won't catch fire, Mythbusters shut one with tracer bullets and it still didn't blow up.

lclarkmichalek• 13 years ago

There is a massive difference between shooting tracers at a fuel tank and the tank being in a car crash. In the Mythbusters test, all of the bullets enter at roughly the same speed, roughly the same angle, have the same size, the same heat, and the environment is "clean"; the only objects that need to be considered are the bullets and the tank. In a car crash, the number of factors is massively increased. The fact that a fuel tank did not explode when it had tracer bullets fired at it does not imply that fuel tanks don't catch fire.

numbsafari4• 13 years ago

Sorry, but even the Mythbusters are fallible.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22gip_video_auto

That's a video of a car on the NJ Turnpike trying to blow through an EZ-Pass toll, and failing miserably.

Notice: the damn thing explodes in a fiery ball.

I guess you'll try and argue that the Toll Booths are designed to explode when cars run into them as a way to discourage such behavior.

Who would even begin to think that shooting a tracer bullet into a gas tank even remotely recreates any of what is going on during a high-speed car accident?

dram2• 13 years ago

There is also a black box (electronic data recorder) on that Mercedes. If something manipulated the system, you'd assume the EDR would record it.

Not to mention it'd be a terrible place to try to kill someone, with cameras everywhere. And there's a ton of disinterested parties, from Mercedes, to the LAPD to voracious friends/fans to investigate the story.

pyalot24• 13 years ago

Well, let me just put on my tinfoil hat.

Other commenter on the thread pointed to a paper demonstrating how pretty every car control function can be hacked and overriden. It can even be rigged to self-erase after crash. And I'm guessing, if you can do that, you can just rewrite the EDR on crash too with fake data and erase any trace of the hack.

The argument of "this would've been a bad place" is pretty much null, for two reasons. First, if you assume the car was hacked, there wasn't anything to film or observe for anybody in the vincinity other than a driver going fast and then crashing, doesn't get much more perfect than that. And secondly, there'd have been friends/fans/police to investigate no matter where the guy died. That place is as good as any.

tzs3• 13 years ago

Here's the fatal (no pun intended) problem with that theory: the groups capable of carrying that out are also smart enough to not go with such an unreliable plan.

He was a reporter. Reporters are easy to lure to secretive meetings with anonymous strangers. You want to kill one? Shoot him at an anonymous meeting, using a non-traceable gun. Or better, use a gun that has been tied to organized crime. Simple and reliable.

leot3• 13 years ago

How do you know how reliable (or not) this plan is?

reledi• 13 years ago

Meanwhile, investigators are still looking into what caused Hastings to crash on Tuesday. They are trying to find out if the car had a technical problem or if he may have had a medical condition that caused him to wreck.

There's speculation online that it was a bomb, which isn't under technical problems or medical conditions. Which makes me wonder, would investigators conclude it was a bomb if there was ample evidence?

TerraHertz3• 13 years ago

Aren't you forgetting the long, sad history of official investigators lying their arses off? For instance take just one example - the TWA 800 'investigation'. With recent whistleblowers coming forward with details of what a coverup that was.

Not trying to derail, but for anyone interested: http://everist.org/archives/links/_TWA_800_links.txt

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

Doubt it. We hear what they want us to hear.

Also not sure about the speculation online... Things that fly are more appealing.

jlgreco8• 13 years ago

Why would some nefarious conspiracy orchestrator put a bomb in the car? If you are going to cause a crash, why throw a bomb into the mix too? It would only serve to cause more suspicious and loose ends. The absolute most that makes any sense is a gallon jug or two of gas under the seat just to be sure, but even that is really pushing it.

Think about it, if you were tasked with causing somebody to be declared dead in a car crash, would you also put a bomb in the car? Only if you wanted to be caught maybe...

tomjen33• 13 years ago

No, I wouldn't.

But then the car blow up (sending the transmission way away) and cought fire. A car doesn't blow up and doesn't catch fire from hitting a tree.

A bomb fits the evidence much better.

informatimago• 13 years ago

So, nothing new on the Voynich front.

TerraHertz3• 13 years ago

Does anyone know the name of the street where the crash occurred? Said to be in Hancock Park, but I can't find that palm lined center-row street in google maps. Want to check something out.

My opinion on the crash - from the pictures online of the crash almost immediately after impact, the whole car is very much on fire, yet the R-side door paint is unburned. This just doesn't fit with modern fuel safety construction.

In the current political climate, and given the evidence he was onto some big story, the 'dead man in a wifi-controlled car' idea seems quite realistic.

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

Highland Avenue - pretty decent two-lane street (in each direction) with a large center divider full of relatively skinny palm trees and grass.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Highland+Avenue,+hancock+park...

ghshephard• 13 years ago

Somewhat ironic (or perhaps disturbing is more appropriate) the recent posting on HN [1] of the historic CIA review of assassinations, in which staged car accidents were fairly prominent.

This line from that post comes to mind,

"If the subject's personal habits make it feasible, alcohol may be used [2 words excised] to prepare him for a contrived accident of any kind."

[1] http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/ciaguat2.html

l33tbro3• 13 years ago

How could it be staged, exactly? The guy was flying down Melrose. The engine of his Merc flew like 100 feet from site of impact. I just don't see how it could be staged.

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

Flying down Highland. And that was a transmission, not an engine.

sanukcm• 13 years ago

http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf [pdf]

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-05/researchers-hack-...

stfu2• 13 years ago

My suggestion would be to trigger the system once a car reaches for example 50mph, e.g. deactivate brakes and push the car to the maximum speed. Driver freaks out, and loosing control at one point therefore making it actually look like somebody lost control over the vehicle. But I have no idea on the fire "aspect".

fnordfnordfnord7• 13 years ago

Spike the guy's drink. Send him a fake message to get him excited. Something from a girlfriend. "Help, someone is in my apartment. I'm hiding in the closet." or just "Help! Come immediately!"

ohwp2• 13 years ago

Cars almost never get fire when they crash. It seems more likely that you crash a car that caught fire.

tomjen33• 13 years ago

Fuel tanks don't catch fire if you shoot at them with tracer bullets (see the old episode of mythbusters), why should they explode when the car hit a tree? It was a nice car, well designed, and surely the engineers at BMW had considered various crash situations, including a front colliosion with a blunt object.

numbsafari4• 13 years ago

Because they do:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22gip_video_auto

numbsafari4• 13 years ago

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaGNk4se99I

hysterix3• 13 years ago

People mentioning mythbusters as if it is actually a relevant data point is really annoying.

They are an entertainment show, nothing more. Because they shot a tracer bullet at a gas tank (really that's the "evidence"?) means exactly nothing in the real world.

tptacek7• 13 years ago

By which you mean "cars catch fire all the time when they crash".

http://www.chandlerlawgroup.com/library/national-vehicle-fir...

(stats from NFPA).

ohwp2• 13 years ago

Mmm, in another report I read it was less than 20% in case of a crash.

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

Raw footage of the crash - that Mercedes (appears to be a 2012 C-Class Coupe) is totally engulfed. The car blew up on impact. How is another question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LSY3wVuASg

cheald• 13 years ago

I thought that cars exploding on impact were pretty much the stuff of Hollywood. Mercedes in particular is well-known for their cars' safety.

This doesn't smell right.

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

Here he is running a red light at high speed (looks like he's traveling well over 80mph) at the intersection moments before the crash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhqKRugk8Q

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

At 5:00 you can see the entire transmission torn off maybe 200-300 feet away from the crash site.

Witnesses report seeing the car driving at a high rate of speed (100+ mph). Damage on the front of the vehicle is extensive and there is debris everywhere - now the question is - would the car explode on impact given the speed or would the fuel tank/pump be cut-off from the engine/electrical systems. Yes and no.

Amadou3• 13 years ago

Correction for anyone likely to be disappointed as I was - raw footage of the fire after the crash. The guy with the video camera gets there and interviews an eye witness after the car is already burning.

What is amazing to me is just how much the entire car burns. I really don't know anything about car fires but it looks crazy how much the entire vehicle is engulfed in flames from what appears to be a one-car head-on accident in a relatively new mercedes.

I had a, I guess unfounded, belief that a modern luxury-brand car would be fairly fire retardant. Not much you can do about gasoline and the tires, but seems like all the interior upholstery and cushions, etc could be reasonably non-flammable.

dredmorbius• 13 years ago

Having seen a few car fires (including several arsons): once they do catch fire, they tend to burn for a good 10-30 minutes, depending on variables. There's a lot of plastic in cars, and that's little more than solid oil. Accelerant will help start the process.

And yes: fires in the event of accidents are fairly rare, even at high rates of speed.

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

Want to consolidate all of my comments into one, so here goes:

1. Raw footage of the crash, that Mercedes (appears to be a 2012 C-Class Coupe) is fully engulfed in flames. The car blew up on impact. How is another question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LSY3wVuASg

2. Dash cam footage of driver running red light (Highland Avenue & Santa Monica Blvd) at a high rate of speed. Video dissolves moments later (something was cut from it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhqKRugk8Q

3. 5:00 into first video (crash) - you can see the entire transmission thrown over 200 feet into the sidewalk.

4. Car is really on fire here, not sure a C-250 fuel tank (17.4 gallons) could create that big of a fireball? And that's a full tank.

5. I will assume Mercedes would engineer the car with the fuel pump cutting off from the engine at the moment of impact. All electrical systems, fuel, combustion, etc. would be disconnected for this reason.

6. He was traveling at a high rate of speed (80+ mph). Highland Avenue is a nice two-land (in each direction) street, no potholes, bumps, smooth like a baby's ass (that particular section of the street). The palm trees are also fairly thin compared to some bigger ones we have here.

7. Who are these LANewsLOUDLABS people? Why are they filming a) the red light at that gas station, b) the accident site shortly after (but going through side streets as opposed to simply going straight and making a right turn?) and c) have an LAPD police scanner (LAPD uses trunked communication, you need a $500+ scanner, of course, accessible to anyone (and legal) with $500.00. But a, b, and c just seem odd...

8. You can tell briefly that the car used by "news" above has a silver exterior. I'm not sure of the make/model, does NOT really sound like a V8 to me, maybe a turbo 6... Driver saying "oh shit" seems genuine, if that makes a difference.

Prelim thoughts:

1) He was going fast, really fast.

2) He ran a red light (there's always a reason for this: alcohol, bad judgment, being chased by someone, etc.)

3) Vehicle burst into flames - but when?

4) Engine and transmission over 200 feet away from crash site (tree)

5) That roof is gone, there's a big hole with flames shooting out - but this car has a panorama sunroof. That glass shattering + high impact collision = hole.

6) Any arson specialists, chemists - feel free to chime in on the pattern, color, position, spread of the burns at 3:00 of the video.

7) The cockpit is intact - so is the drivers seat - the engine is gone, the car is badly damaged in the front, but if there was no fire, I'd say bad injuries but alive. Fire killed the guy.

jlgreco8• 13 years ago

7. Who are these LANewsLOUDLABS people? Why are they filming a) the red light at that gas station, b) the accident site shortly after (but going through side streets as opposed to simply going straight and making a right turn?) and c) have an LAPD police scanner (LAPD uses trunked communication, you need a $500+ scanner, of course, accessible to anyone (and legal) with $500.00. But a, b, and c just seem odd...
8. You can tell briefly that the car used by "news" above has a silver exterior. I'm not sure of the make/model, does NOT really sound like a V8 to me, maybe a turbo 6... Driver saying "oh shit" seems genuine, if that makes a difference.

If there was a conspiracy here (and I am not saying one way or the other), then why would these people be involved? Why would the conspiracy organizers throw in extraneous details that would only serve to arouse suspicion?

It's like 9/11 conspiracies... if you were a shady CIA dude who wanted to start a war by flying some planes into buildings, why wouldn't you actually just fly planes into buildings? All the things that 9/11 conspiracy theorists point to are not things that would make sense from the perspective from a conspiracy organizer. Thermite, empty drone planes, missles? Why not just actually use a plane?

Similarly, why not just let the local news cover the planned crash as they normally would, or not give a shit if they don't? If I were planning some sort of conspiracy, that's how I'd do it...

lotso• 13 years ago

In regards to #7, it looks like they film stuff like this often

http://www.youtube.com/user/LAnewsLOUDLABS/videos

rdouble4• 13 years ago

It looks like LAnewsLOUDLABS are graffiti artists who stay up all night filming accidents and crime scenes to sell to TV stations. Regarding the scanner, you can listen to LAPD with an iPhone app. The car starting on fire is similar to what happened in Ryan Dunn's accident.

oogali• 13 years ago

I bought a Uniden trunked scanner for $140 from Radio Shack in 2000.

sheri• 13 years ago

2) He ran a red light (there's always a reason for this: alcohol, bad judgment, being chased by someone, etc.)

This is the most interesting part of the story to me. Even if he was drunk, I'm finding it hard to believe he would race through a light at that speed.

dram2• 13 years ago

This is the most interesting fact. There's video cameras everywhere and he had to know that. The reasonable answer seems to be a medical issue.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

Really? Maybe it's just my perspective reading safety reports in the Navy, but "drunk guy driving fast in completely wrong area" is not at all unusual.

kintamanimatt• 13 years ago

How do you know he was going 80+ mph? That second video looks really sped up.

Steko4• 13 years ago

Trying to consolidate all the red flags in one place:

1. "How is another question." No it isn't. Gasoline is how cars blow up when they hit trees.

2. "Video dissolves moments later (something was cut from it)" This is called editing; it's used when interesting things stop happening.

3. " over 200 feet" Or, as some reports have it, 'over 100 feet'. Shouldn't be hard to measure the exact distance from Google maps or someone can go there.

4. "not sure a C-250 fuel tank (17.4 gallons) could create that big of a fireball?" This is random FUD. It's not hard to find images of similar sized cars exploding on Google.

5. "All electrical systems, fuel, combustion, etc. would be disconnected for this reason." The fuel tank isn't made of adamantium.

wavefunction9• 13 years ago

Your answers are not scientific, even as pat as they may be.

Cars don't "blow up" though they may catch fire.

Images of cars exploding on Google?

Adamantium?

Whatever, just keep repeating this sort of stuff and maybe some more people will believe you.

mehmehshoe• 13 years ago

I did a fire training with the ALMS safety team a few years back at Sebring. We started with lighting 1/4 gallon of 100 octane (15% ethanol) race fuel then by the end we used 1 gallon spilled on the concrete. The 1 gallon fire was over 20 feet high and took 20 seconds for a volunteer to put out with AFFF-AR suppressant. That demonstration woke all of us up very fast considering the cars carry upwards of 19 gallons.

wisty• 13 years ago

Cars are quite combustable, even without fuel. Firemen hate car fires. Pretty much everything inside them burns pretty horribly.

It's like modern homes and offices. I forget the statistics, but it was something like 30 minutes to get someone out of a house in the old days, now down to 10 minutes. And they say it takes forever to get rid of the smell of burning plastic, if they've gone in while it's burning.

htsh• 13 years ago

My best friend (and first co-founder) died in a crash after hitting a tree at 48mph in a BMW 5-series.

I used to hold the same assumptions you did, particularly #'s 4 & 5. In my friend's case, the firewall gave & the engine came into the cockpit & exploded, splitting the driver in half & burning my friend past the point of recovery.

The fireball from the explosion marked the tree, the street, & the lawn for a 20-30 foot radius around the crash site, unbelievable that it could be created by one car.

It made me realize that the engines in these cars are optimized for serious performance and they can only be so safe. In this case, a C250 is getting 200+ horsepower out of a small 1.8l engine. Cranking at 80mph, I'm not sure there's anyway to avoid this sort of explosion or for the safety measures to kick in fast enough.

Just my two cents. Obviously I don't know the details here, but I did want to add that even a 48mph collision into a tree at a particular angle can very well create a really large explosion.

-h

fnordfnordfnord7• 13 years ago

Here, I'll try to deal with the fire, which I admit is impressive.

Night time photography with amateur video equipment usually results in overexposed frames, especially when filming fire. It makes videos of fires appear as though the fire is bigger than it would have appeared in person. Keep that in mind while viewing the video. Try it out some time with your cell phone.

That the car is completely engulfed isn't suspicious. All of the upholstery is flammable. Cars burn quickly once the interior becomes involved because they are usually not starved for fuel (upholstery) or air (windows broken, doors open).

The car should be engineered so that there will not be a fuel tank breach in a non-fatal collision. If we assume this is so, we can assume:

1. Velocity was high enough to breach the tank with impact. Engine/transmission being ejected can help us find the velocity at impact. It continued to travel some distance indicating a high velocity, as most crashes never have the engine/transmission separate from the vehicle.

2. Tank was damaged by the collision with the curb or by collision with the fire hydrant immediately prior to final collision, weakening it, making it more likely for the tank to rupture and spill fuel.

3. Vehicle tampering. The car could have been tampered with to make a fire more likely.

4. Manufacturing defect. (unlikely)

If we assume 1. it doesn't necessarily mean the crash was fatal, just that Hastings was unlucky. Mercedes have lots of safety built in. Hastings was young and fit enough to survive an airbag collision. In any case, this one shouldn't be rejected until the final velocity is calculated. Looks plausible to me.

Personally I lean towards 2, making Hastings very unlucky. Two means that the final collision caused a catastrophic failure of the tank and probably doused fuel all over the car, which later ignited[1], and moments after that caused a secondary ignition of the upholstery, burning him. I hope he was unconscious.

I don't like to think about three, even though it isn't without precedent. Talking about three is even worse. I'd say this is least likely, but I wouldn't rule it out. This whole affair smells, and I don't like it one bit.

[1] The source of ignition was probably the catalytic converter, or an electrical short/spark.

JshWright3• 13 years ago

Firefighter/EMT, with roughly a decade of experience. I've seen many (at least dozens) of high speed crashes, and several (half a dozen) fiery wrecks.

1) He was going fast, really fast.

Yep

2) He ran a red light (there's always a reason for this: alcohol, bad judgment, being chased by someone, etc.)

Yep

3) Vehicle burst into flames - but when?

Likely at the moment of impact. There are a number of possible ignition sources. The most likely is some amount of fuel (this wouldn't need to be much) splashing on something hot enough to ignite it. Once it's burning, it wouldn't take long for it to spread to other fuel sources (including brush and grass underneath the vehicle).

4) Engine and transmission over 200 feet away from crash site (tree)

See point 1. He was going very fast. I've seen similar things happen at similar speeds.

5) That roof is gone, there's a big hole with flames shooting out - but this car has a panorama sunroof. That glass shattering + high impact collision = hole.

Makes sense.

6) Any arson specialists, chemists - feel free to chime in on the pattern, color, position, spread of the burns at 3:00 of the video.

The burn pattern is pretty consistent with most vehicle fires I've seen. The primary fuel source isn't the gas, it's the cushions and other plastic stuff on the interior. The gas likely started the fire, but it's extremely unlikely the tank failed catastrophically, so the amount of gas available to the fire was likely pretty minimal (just what was leaking out of a small puncture or something like that). Note how the paint is burned off the top 3/4 of the driver's door, as if the fire were coming down from the top. That's due to the contents of the car burning, not the fuel underneath the car.

7) The cockpit is intact - so is the drivers seat - the engine is gone, the car is badly damaged in the front, but if there was no fire, I'd say bad injuries but alive. Fire killed the guy.

There's no way to know what his condition was prior to the fire. If he was unbelted, he was dead. Even if he was belted, that's a huge deceleration for his body to deal with. In 'straight line' deceleration like that, the heart keeps moving when the rib cage stops (either after hitting the seat belt or the steering wheel), but the aorta is anchored to the rear of the chest cavity, so it gets torn, so the heart is no longer able to produce any meaningful impact, blood pressure falls almost instantly and some definition of death occurs within seconds. There are plenty of other ways to end up dead (or dying) in a car collision, that's just a moderately common one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_aortic_rupture#Featur...

socillion2• 13 years ago

#2 - footage shows 3 cars run the red light in rapid succession, which was edited out of the version on Youtube.

1min 9s on: http://embed.newsinc.com/Single/iframe.html?WID=2&VID=248956...

andor• 13 years ago

It's the exact same sequence repeated 3 times, not 3 different cars.

crocowhile4• 13 years ago

This is a video from a UCSD researcher on malicious attacks on modern automobiles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHfOziIwXic

Examples of what can be done: Insert in the radio a CD containing a malicious WMA file that would play fine on the computer but once in the car could completely compromise the car electronics...

scotth• 13 years ago

Well that was eye-opening.

contingencies• 13 years ago

Link to the original paper and one additional paper: http://www.autosec.org/publications.html

The money shot - single image comparing all attack vectors: http://i.imgur.com/ylXoPmz.png

l33tbro3• 13 years ago

I still call poppy-cock. It's just such a ridiculous proposition.

Look, the guy contacted Wikileaks a few hours before his death. Wikileaks! He also contacted his employers about a story he was writing on the subject of NSA. Now, if .. IF the FBI/NSA were intent on ending him, surely they would have been privy to said communications. This being the case - what motive would they have to go through with it? I mean, by doing so, they would knowingly and invariably be drawing more heat to that which they were covering up. How? Well,

a) Wikileaks knows about it. Therefore a suspicious death would draw more attention to whatever it was he was about to report.

b) A suspicious death would make him a journalistic martyr, prompting one of his fellow reporters to pick up on where his research was left and give even greater salience to the issue reported. The FBI aren't stupid. They know that murdering a reporter would only magnify the issue down the track.

I'm sorry, it just doesn't make sense to me that they would willingly self-immolate by killing the dude and igniting several spotfires.

I'd like to believe it too. I'd love to see these Prism guards go down, believe me. Honestly thought the people of HN were a bit beyond the conspiracy crap you find on Reddit and such places.

crocowhile4• 13 years ago

Well, he was one of the most successful journalists of his age; he previously destroyed a former CIA general with his writings; he claimed one year ago to have lots of sources in governmental agencies ( http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/uaha0/iam_michael_... ); he recently wrote messages saying he was onto something big re: NSA; he was, basically, at the apex of his career. Why would he go "yeah, let's see how fast this car can go now!" all of a sudden? I am not saying he was killed but I would not find hard at all to believe TBH.

rdouble4• 13 years ago

Why would he go "yeah, let's see how fast this car can go now!" all of a sudden?

Maybe he was drunk.

hysterix3• 13 years ago

he was, basically, at the apex of his career. Why would he go "yeah, let's see how fast this car can go now!"

See Ryan Dunn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Dunn

tl;dr - people make stupid fucking decisions, even at the apex of their career.

Andrew_Quentin• 13 years ago

Maybe time was a factor, perhaps he was ready to publish his story or close to doing so. Then there is also the tactic of hiding in plain sight.

All of what you mentioned could however be a coincidence, but that doesn't seem to be the simplest explanation.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

Honestly thought the people of HN were a bit beyond the conspiracy crap you find on Reddit and such places.

LMAO, hahaha. I was forced past my belief in the infallibility of HN with regard to conspiracy theories right about January of this year. Though I can't hardly piece together who's here because of YC, who's here because HN is where we discuss tech civil liberties, and who's here just because, so maybe the old YC-HN would have been more resistant, who knows?

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

First I have seen of this, so I have no idea of the various theories. As I understand it, the car crashed at the front and blew up? Correct? If so...

I find it very, very hard to believe a modern Mercedes would do that. Merc are very safety conscious, they sell to well off people who expect not to blow up, and that is on top of strict EU safety rules and testing. I assume the US also has it's standards to comply with too. This is a luxury car manufacturer which prides its self on safety above and beyond legislation or international standards, and sells to customer who fully expect that.

So, is there no public Merc statement or full on internal investigation? A Merc blowing up like that publicly should be a massive PR disaster for them. Who wants a luxury car that blows up in a front impact? If it is as simple as a front impact causing the car to blow up, I would have thought Merc would be very, publicly, concerned about that.

If I were some one interested in investigating this, I'd be perusing Mercedes to see what they have to say.

yaix• 13 years ago

Yeah well, the hole in the Pentagon on 9/11 was too small for the airplace too, and the engines magically disappeared. Regardless, today's "truth" is the official version.

tptacek7• 13 years ago

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/car-experts-michael-ha...

“It wouldn’t be an underestimation to say that every day, a lawsuit is filed over a car fire right after an accident. There are every year 300,000 vehicle fires and a couple hundred deaths and a couple thousand injuries.”

Steko4• 13 years ago

"I find it very, very hard to believe a modern Mercedes would do that. "

Mercedes cars are not immune to the rules of physics. Gasoline is flammable.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/car-experts-michael-ha...

But post-crash fires are, in fact, depressingly typical, especially in high-speed scenarios, says Philadelphia attorney Max Kennerly, whose firm represents plaintiffs in car fires.

“If someone is driving at high speed and hits a very solid object, yeah, you’ll get a fire out of that,” Kennerly says. “It wouldn’t be an underestimation to say that every day, a lawsuit is filed over a car fire right after an accident. There are every year 300,000 vehicle fires...”

Frank Markus, technical director of Motor Trend, points out that “any impact at speeds high enough to rip the drive train out of a car is highly likely to force some object to rupture the fuel tank. There is a lot of potential chemical energy in a gas tank that's even a quarter full...

So while the casual evidence might suggest otherwise, the prosaic reality is that cars involved in high-speed crashes often go up in flames

edit: boo, beaten to the punch by 2 minutes with the same cite.

wavefunction9• 13 years ago

Gas is indeed flammable, but only under specific circumstances.

And citing hollywoodreporter.com? Thanks but I think I'll rely on more reputable sources:

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/crash-a...

tptacek7• 13 years ago

The Blaze. Glenn Beck's site. Really?

Kylekramer• 13 years ago

The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control. The truth is more frightening, nobody is in control. - Alan Moore

blueprint2• 13 years ago

What is the evidence that this world operates chaotically? Are you sure you understand what that word means?

When we talk about the term "truth" it's absolutely critical that we have evidence in our words.

blueprint2• 13 years ago

Being downvoted for asking for evidence of claims about the term 'truth' is not a good sign.

hysterix3• 13 years ago

"Nobody is in control".

Wow that is probably the most naive statement I've seen made on hn in a while. If you truly believe that, I've got some beach front property in arizona to sell you.

I love the logic, we aren't being controlled by "reptilians' so therefore nobody is in control? Really terrible statement that is meaningless.

brokenparser• 13 years ago

Well, he's definitely "off the radar" now.

TerraHertz3• 13 years ago

I'm sure many here will roll their eyes at this source:

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1687.htm Top US Journalist Attempting To Reach Israeli Consulate Assassinated - By Sorcha Faal

But it's an interesting set of dots. The address they give for the Israeli consulate is correct: http://www.israeliconsulatela.org/index.php/en/get-direction... Which does make it about 9 miles from Hastings' crash site, fwiw.

But I'm more interested in identifying the exact crash location, and the direction he was going. In this article: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/21/email-sent-by-mic... there are two photos of the crash site that should allow location of the exact site using google maps and streetview. Particularly this one: http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/600x39998...

It seems to be somewhere sth of the intersection of Highland and Melrose Av, here: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Highland+and+Melrose+avenues&...

I've tried, but still can't pinpoint it.

From this image: http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/600x339.j... I'm wondering if the car clipped the foreground palm tree, then hit the next tree solidly on the front left of the car. So the car ends up spinning to the right, stopping at 90 deg to the street. This would explain why there's little visible damage to the RH side of the car. But not really why the rear damage.

If that's so, it must have been traveling away from the camera view point. But is that going Nth or Sth? In either case, it's hard to see how that fits with heading to the Israeli consulate.

Someone might like to go and see if there's any shrapnel damage in the road surface anywhere before the impact point.

dakrisht11• 13 years ago

"I need to go off the radar for a bit."

Not sure how big this guy is, let's just say average build, average height - is it me - or is there no visible body in the driver's seat at 3:00 in the video?

If he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, he would have been ejected to where the engine was. Otherwise, that seatbelt keeps him in the same place, even if he leaned over, etc.

Not into conspiracies but definitely some interesting observations from others on this thread.

The BIGGEST red flag of course is WHY he was speeding through a red light at a high rate of speed.

Could be many, many things.

DanBC2• 13 years ago

The BIGGEST red flag of course is WHY he was speeding through a red light at a high rate of speed.

I'd be interested to know how many people drive through red lights, and how many people drive at that speed, and how many people drive at red lights at that speed. (Not because it has any bearing on this story, I just want to put it in some kind of context.)

rdouble4• 13 years ago

In LA people drive like that all the time. I am not sure why that part of the story is suspicious.

Email Sent by Michael Hastings Hours Before His Death Mentions ‘Big Story’

Related Stories