Two men have been killed whil🅺e using the runway a𝕴t a small Colorado airport to test drive a 2016 Dodge Challenger Hellcat.
The sky blue muscle car crashe🐼d after rocketing off the runway at the Buena Vista Regional Airport Friday, becoming airborne and sailing across a ravine, .
“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 proꦍbably got to the end of the runway and, at that speed, didn’t realize they were there so fast. And they𝓡 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 Lichtenbergꦿer, 76, of San Marcos, Calif., were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said൩.
Spezze told thꦬe paper Fitzgerald and ꦍhis friend had permission to use the runway.
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 continuing𒁃 another 315 feet, the Challenger became airborne over a ravine.
The release went on to say that after striking the ground the vehicle “became airbornಞe 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 th൩e runway.
The airpo🔯rt 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 𒈔anything like it💦,” Spezze said, according to the paper. “They had permission to be there. There were no laws broken.”