CLOVERDALE, Ind. (AP) — Indiana police are investigating a fatal crash involving a Tesla car that rear-ended a fire truck parked along Interstate 70, killing an Arizona woman and seriously injuring her husband.
Derrick N. Monet, 25, of Prescott Valley, Arizona, was behind the wheel of a 2019 Tesla traveling along I-70 in western Indiana’s Putnam County on Dec. 29 when he failed to the see the parked fire truck and plowed into its rear, said Sgt. Matt Ames with Indiana State Police.
Both Monet and his wife, Jenna N. Monet, 23, also of Prescott Valley, Arizona, were seriously injured. Jenna Monet was later pronounced dead at a Terre Haute hospital.
Police said the Cloverdale Fire Department fire truck was parked along the highway, its emergency lights activated while responding to a single-vehicle crash, when the collision occurred, police said.
Ames said Derrick Monet told investigators he regularly uses his Tesla’s autopilot mode, but that “due to the impact of the accident he cannot recall whether or not he had it on at the time of the accident.”
State police are continuing to investigate whether or not the autopilot was activated and planned to contact Tesla as part of their investigation, he said.
Ames said that at the time of the crash the Monets were traveling from Arizona to Maryland.