My girlfriend and I happened to be in the Lee Vining area on Thursday, September 29th. We saw the flyer posted at the Mobil Gas Mart located at the intersection of Hwy 395 and 120 and were keeping our eyes open for any signs of the car.

Unfortunately, we learned that evening that the vehicle had been found just 4 or 5 miles up highway 120 and that Mr. Yuan and Ms. Wang had not survived.

While I live in Southern California, I visit that area five or more times a year and have for the past 35 years. I am intimately familiar with the roads there, especially Tioga Pass Road, which I have traversed hundreds of times in my life.

On Friday, we watched as we descended the mountain for evidence of the site and found that it was made easy to recognize due to the flourescent orange paint used by the investigators to mark crucial areas and evidence.

I am not an investigator so I will only state what I saw and not make any conclusions as to the cause of the accident. Let it be said that Tioga Pass Road is a very dangerous place, there are very few guardrails and steep drops on a very twisty road. The road is also very steep, I believe it's a 9% grade which is very taxing on the brakes if the driver doesn't use lower gears.

The accident occured between 2 and 3 miles west of the Poole Power Plant turn-off. The turn-off marks the end of the steepest part of the road. Where the car went off it was a sweeping, downhill left hand turn that would normally be taken at between 35 and 45 miles per hour. The road runs along the north wall of the canyon, so in left turns centrifugal force is pulling you to the outside while right turns would be to the inside. There is a large dirt turn-off to the outside of the turn. I don't recall how far into the turn the car was but at some point the brakes were applied and a left tire locked up, leaving a straight, black skidmark about 10 feet long. There was a skidmark from the right side as well, but it was very light. The skidmarks continued in a straight line (as marked by the investigators orange paint and indicated by the still visible troughs gouged by the tires in the rocky dirt that made up the turn-off) across the dirt turn-off (appx. 40 to 60 feet). At that point, the canyon wall drops off at a pretty steep angle. The location where the car went off of the embankment is strewn with large granite boulders with an occaisional Aspen tree.



This is a picture of the canyon, the area of the accident would be towards the very lower right corner and the vehicle would have been traveling east (downhill) prior to the accident. This canyon is also used in the beginning of the current TV commercial for the BMW X5 that starts out "Think of the mountains you want to climb...".

There was very little evidence of what happened after the car went off the embankment. We could see where it had been pulled up by a tow truck but couldn't really identify where it had finally come to rest. The location where the car was pulled up was probably 100 or so feet from the point where it went off the embankment.

Again, I am not an investigator, this is just what we saw.

My girlfriend and I would like to extend our condolences to the family. We stood at the site and said a prayer for both the victims and those who will miss them.