The Cnr is launching an internal investigation into the accident that occurred two days ago on the Naples ring road, when a prototype car in which a researcher from the institute and a young graduate student were traveling exploded, causing very serious burns to both passengers, now hospitalized with confidential prognoses .
Riccardo Chirone, director of the research institute on combustion based in Naples, announces the start of the investigation and underlines that the Cnr is fully willing to collaborate with the investigators. The exploded car, a Volkswagen Polo, is - explains Chirone - «a prototype entrusted to the University of Salerno for a European research project on the hybridisation of engines of which the CNR is not a partner. Tests are also done on the road».
The serious conditions of the two injured - the 66-year-old researcher Maria Vittoria Prati, trapped for a few minutes in the burning car, and the 25-year-old student Fulvio Filace, thrown out of the car - have not yet allowed the traffic police investigators to gather their testimonies.
On the basis of the first findings, it is believed that the explosion, while the car was on the Naples ring road towards Pozzuoli, was caused by the cylinders on board the car, with contents not yet defined. Another element to be clarified will be the nature of the trigger: the hypotheses range from heat to a spark, a collision is excluded because the images of the cameras on the bypass do not show any collision of the Polo with other vehicles or against the guardrail.
The self-prototype was part of a European research project on the hybridization of engines to be scrapped, and therefore envisaged a mixed operation, petrol and solar energy.
(Unioneonline/D)
