Video shows car airborne before Rainbow Bridge explosion

Publish date: 2024-08-01

Surveillance video captured the moment a speeding car suddenly went airborne at a checkpoint on the US-Canada Rainbow Bridge Wednesday — just seconds before it erupted into a massive fireball.

At least one CCTV camera managed to catch the vehicle soaring several feet in the air after appearing to strike what sources said was a barrier near the checkpoint area on the American side of the bridge between Niagara Falls, NY and Ontario, Canada at about 11:15 a.m.

Moments later, a second video — believed to be taken from a nearby US Customs and Border Protection building — showed a ball of flames exploding.

The blast sent debris from a nearby security booth flying as plumes of thick smoke engulfed the area, the footage shows.

The vehicle had been going up to 100 mph at the time, sources said, adding that the car was left broken into several pieces after it landed in a fireball.

“All of a sudden, he went up in the air and then it was a ball of fire like 30 or 40 feet high,” witness Mike Guenther told WGRZ-TV. “I never saw anything like it.”

Surveillance cameras captured the moment a car explosion erupted on the US-Canada checkpoint bridge in Niagara Falls Wednesday. Storyful
The scene of the car explosion at the Rainbow Bridge.
The blast sent debris from a nearby security booth flying. @sal.alwishah via Storyful
Law enforcement blocked off the entrance to the bridge after the explosion. Robert Bennett
Video captured the moment the car went airborne. @sal.alwishah via Storyful
A Google Earth aerial view of the Rainbow Bridge. Google Earth
New York State Park Police on the scene after the explosion. REUTERS

The two occupants of the car, whose identities haven’t been released, were found dead inside the vehicle, sources said.

A Border Patrol officer who was in the checkpoint booth at the time was injured in the explosion, and then treated at a hospital and released.

Investigators believe the car had been heading from New York to Ontario when it th driver, who was going at an “extraordinarily high rate of speed,” crashed into a median on the US side, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a press conference.

The explosion caused the closure of the Rainbow Bridge border crossing, as well as three others in the area as a precaution.

“Based on what we know at this moment, there is no sign of terrorist activity in this crash,” Hochul said.

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