The Arizona (U.S.) Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded 150' up the side of a cliff rising above the road, on the outside of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but on further investigation it became apparent that it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The boys in the lab finally figured out what it was, and what had happened. It seems that a guy had somehow got hold of a Jett Assisted Take Off unit (JATO), actually a solid-fuel rocket that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra `push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the Arizona desert, and upon finding a long, straight stretch of road about three miles long attached the JATO unit to his car. He jumped in, got up some speed, and fired off the JATO!! As best as could be determined, he was going somewhere between 250 and 300 mph (350-420kph) when he came to that curve. . . The brakes and tires were completely burned away, apparently from trying to slow the car.
