Two men were killed using the runway at the Buena Vista Regional Airport to test drive a 2016 Dodge Challenger Hellcat. (Colorado Department of Transportation)
Two men have been killed while using the runway at a small Colorado airport to test drive a 2016 Dodge Challenger Hellcat.
The sky blue muscle car crashed after rocketing off the runway at the Buena Vista Regional Airport Friday, becoming airborne and sailing across a ravine, the Denver Post reported.
2016 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat
“They were just test driving this car,” Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze told the paper. “They went a little too fast. I don’t want to surmise. … They probably got to the end of the runway and, at that speed, didn’t realize they were there so fast. And they lost control. It was just too high a speed and they got to the end of the runway.”
Lynd Fitzgerald, 71, of Colorado Springs, and Roger Lichtenberger, 76, of San Marcos, Calif., were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
Spezze told the paper Fitzgerald and his friend had permission to use the runway.
2016 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat
They were likely going more than 100 mph when they ran off the runway, the paper reported. Fitzgerald was behind the wheel.
Spezze’s office issued a press release Sunday that said that after speeding down the runway and continuing another 315 feet, the Challenger became airborne over a ravine.
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The release went on to say that after striking the ground the vehicle “became airborne a second time flipping end over end over a second ravine before coming to rest on its wheels.”
Deputies found the wreckage about 650 feet past the runway.
The airport boasts on its website having the longest mountain runway in Colorado at 8,300 feet, or more than a mile and a half.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Spezze said, according to the paper. “They had permission to be there. There were no laws broken.”